


First Movement

by Deannie



Series: The Silence In Between [1]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Adulting is hard, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Jedi-ing is hard, Space Dad Kanan Jarrus, season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:14:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 31,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21702793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: "The music is not the notes, but the silence in between." —BeethovenA lot of things happened and a lot of talks were had when the cameras weren't rolling. This is season one.This fic was originally titled "The Silence in Between, Part I," But that just sounds dumb, so I changed it :).
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Kanan Jarrus, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Series: The Silence In Between [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564306
Comments: 125
Kudos: 124





	1. Itchy and Uncomfortable

**Author's Note:**

> There are a number of references in the story collection to both A New Dawn, by John Jackson Miller, and Kanan, the comic by Greg Weisman and company. And of course, ALL of season one.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Episodes 1 and 2

_Through all things, the Force flows.  
_ _All things, it wills.  
_ _All things, it moves, but only in stillness._

Life in the Jedi temple on Coruscant was pretty predictable. Wake up, meditate, eat, train, eat, learn, eat, meditate, sleep. Jedi youngling Caleb Dume had never known anything else, but, strangely, had never really gotten the hang of loving said schedule.

 _Through it many things may be seen  
_ _Understood they may be, but only in time._

Once the Jedi Order had fallen, and Caleb’s life became a nightmare from which he was sure he’d never awaken, the young padawan would meditate when he could. Desperately. As if, somehow, it would connect him to the others—if there were any left. In those times when he had a safe place to stay and time to breathe, he’d search the Force with all his power. He’d daydream about connecting with Master Yoda (because surely even every clone in the galaxy couldn’t destroy _him_ ) or Obi-Wan and having them find him. Save him.

 _Itself the Force is.  
_ _Secrets it holds.  
_ _Find them you may, but only in silence._

It wasn’t until he’d given up on the Force entirely and become Kanan Jarrus that he realized the only one who was going to save him was _him_.

 _At one with the Force, will you feel all things.  
_ _But know all things, you may not._

Or maybe—the thought invaded his darkness, incongruous and entirely unJedi—he’d be saved by a sultry Twi’lek with a voice to die for and lekku that swayed when she walked…

Kanan’s eyes popped open and he stared out the topside gunner port at the stars above the field they’d parked in for the moment. “Clearly now is not the time to try meditating,” he grumbled wryly to himself.

It was Hera’s fault he’d ever started it up regularly again, anyway. They’d been flying together for a number of months—him playing at _just_ being crew, her talking him into more rebel activities than he was strictly comfortable with—before she’d let him share her bed the first time. He’d known that Jedi could and had used sex as a tool. He’d been taught how to do it without “entanglement.” What he hadn’t learned in the temple before going to war he’d sure as suns learned in a hundred different backwater outposts with a dizzying array of females of all stripes and shades.

And yet… Well, he’d always known Hera was different, hadn’t he? He’d been ready to bed her mindlessly the moment he heard her voice. That their relationship was anything _but_ mindless hadn’t been as much of a revelation as he thought it should be, because her rebuffs of his advances had given him time to learn that Hera Syndulla did nothing mindless. Ever.

But her question, as she was lying in bed with him a week after he’d gone from crew to something else, managed to catch him by surprise. 

“Do you still follow any of the ways?” she’d asked, curled against him in the darkness as they floated moored above the water planet of Mopatan. Tomorrow they would descend to meet a Hutt who claimed to have information on a small group of Lasat refugees.

He hadn’t wanted to answer. It was no one’s business—least of all his own. Caleb Dume, that annoying ghost in his mind, didn’t drive him. He’d shut the terrified child up years ago. Right?

“I try not to think about it,” he answered shortly.

She kissed his chest lightly. “But you do anyway.”

Kanan had tightened his arm around her. “Look, can we just talk about something else?”

The silence dragged on for a long moment. This thing between them was new enough that he couldn’t read _why_ she said nothing. But the silence was itchy and uncomfortable, and if there was anything Kanan Jarrus hated, it was itchy and uncomfortable.

“I meditate,” he finally divulged unwillingly. “Sometimes.” Caleb didn’t dream of rescue anymore, but again, that wasn’t Kanan’s problem.

He felt Hera’s talented lips curve into a smile against his chest. He could almost hear her triumph.

Shaking his head, he kissed her nearer lek, closing his eyes.

“You’re hopeless.”

But he wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to himself.

And he’d begun meditating at least daily soon after. And took out his lightsaber for the first time in far too long not ten days after that. And went through his forms, even trained. It wasn’t like the temple, or in the field with his master. Kanan’s world had changed, and his connection to the Force with it. As he’d opened himself to it, more and more, he found he really _wasn’t_ the padawan he had been. He wasn’t a Jedi, certainly. He was something different, and for him and Hera and the work they did, that was enough.

But would it be enough for Ezra Bridger?

“Can’t sleep?”

The aforementioned voice to die for wafted up from the deck below, and Kanan looked down to see Hera looking up at him, that knowing, gentle, sarcastic look in her eyes. She knew exactly what his problem was. She usually did. Sometimes he wondered if _she_ wasn’t Force-sensitive and just hiding it from him.

“You did sort of set me up for it,” he accused mildly, watching her lekku swish as she stepped out of the way so he could slide down the ladder toward her. His voice went high and teasing. “Can we keep him, Kanan?” he mocked. “Please?”

“You came up with the test,” she reminded him. Her voice turned chiding. “And since when do I ask?”

She didn’t, it was true. Hera chose the people that surrounded them. It was just the way it was.

And Kanan _had_ come up with the test. It was really the only one he could think of that would give Ezra a choice that he could understand. Stealing was a way of life for kids who grew up on the street, Kanan knew from experience, and his own Jedi tools had to be poking at the kid, now he was so close to them. What he did with them once he had them would determine the course of this whole thing.

_“If he can open the holocron,” he’d said to her the night before, kept awake by the buzz of a Force child so near. “Then… we’ll see.”_

Kanan had felt the holocron as Ezra had handed him his stolen lightsaber, felt Depa’s gift to him brush past as the boy’s essence moved out and away. And he’d prayed the kid would just go off and hock it and let him off the hook.

But, he guessed they were seeing, weren’t they? A typically huge snore erupted from Zeb's room down the hall. Zeb and _Ezra’s_ room, much to the Lasat’s horror.

“They haven’t killed each other yet,” he said softly.

Hera grinned. “I told him to pretend Ezra was a kit he was babysitting.”

“And?” Kanan led.

Hera swung her hips pleasantly as she walked around the ladder and opened the common room door. “He said kits were why the Lasat created cribcages.”

Kanan chuckled as he followed her in.

“They’ll get used to each other,” Hera promised. She was usually right, too. But she also had that irritating habit of picking up strays.

And a stray whose soul sang out to Kanan the way Ezra’s did was a complication Kanan just did not need.

“I’m still not sure this is a good idea, Hera,” he said, as they headed to the galley and he set about brewing mokla. He did actually want to try to sleep at some point, and caf would just ruin his chances even more.

“He’s a good kid,” Hera argued mildly. He could feel her eyes on his back, measuring him. “I think you’ll be good for each other.”

Kanan snorted at that. “There you go again,” he said, turning to face her and leaning against the counter as the mokla boiled. “Trying to make a nerf pouch into a gossamer gown.” His eyes fell as his fears cropped up, unbidden. “I’m not sure there’s anything much I can offer him.”

Hera did that silence thing again. He _hated_ it.

“Look, I never even completed my _own_ training,” he argued after a few moments, his hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck, as if he could clear his mental discomfort that way. “I don’t know why I even let you talk me into this.”

“Because he needs you, love,” she said quietly, maintaining her distance. She did it to give him space to think. Leaving the Force around him to guide him. “You know you couldn’t leave a Force-sensitive child out there on his own.”

 _Like the Jedi left me,_ his mind insisted on adding. 

Sweet hells, she was right. He didn’t have a choice. From the moment Ezra’s essence had found him in the streets of Capital City, he’d been committed. It was fore-ordained, as Master Nattah would say. 

_Itself, the Force is._ Master Yoda’s words were a comfort in a way that Kanan's memories rarely had been before he met Hera. Itself it was, indeed. And it had brought him and Ezra together.

And for once in his life, he’d been put in a place where his childhood could do someone some good. Another child in fact—one who’d suffered the way he had. The pull of gravity that was caused by two Force-sensitives in the same place was like Hera's silence thing. 

He couldn’t stay itchy and uncomfortable forever.

“The mokla is burning, dear.”

And yes, the stench of burning mokla hit his nose the same second her sultry dig hit his ears, and Kanan spun around to shut off the cooker. “Shab,” he growled at himself. And didn’t that just say it all? If he couldn’t brew a drink, how the hell could he train a Jedi?

Hera’s hand landed softly on the small of his back and rubbed up and down comfortingly. “It’ll be okay, love,” she whispered. “You’ll see.”

He rinsed the burnt and stinking mess down the drain. “I hope you’re right.”

He couldn’t screw up as badly here as he had on Kaller, right? Master Billaba taught him a lot before she died. Almost against his will, he’d picked up more as he traveled the galaxy, pretending to be what he wasn’t, while the Force toyed with him anyway... 

_Damaged goods._

Maybe. 

But then, he thought, the image of Ezra’s bright eyes reminding him of Caleb’s own, weren’t they all?

“So when are you going to start training him?” Hera asked, once he’d gotten another pot of mokla going.

Kanan sighed. “As soon as I figure out how.”

********

tbc...


	2. Not Like Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tag for Droids in Distress

It took Zeb a couple of minutes before he looked ready to move. And then a couple of tries to stop leaning on Kanan and stand—mostly—on his own. But Ezra wasn’t worried. Really. 

Zeb took a deep breath, grunted in pain, and then looked up gamely at the ladder to the crew quarters. 

“We couldn’t move my room down here, could we, Hera?” he asked, exhaustion pulling at the words. “Just for tonight?”

“You could always have Ezra use the Force and lift you up there,” Sabine teased. 

The tease fell flat at the worried look that ran between Hera and Kanan—just for a second. The… _echo_ … of it, from the Force, Ezra guessed, lasted a little longer.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Kanan replied, trying to sound joking. He was pretty concerned when he looked up into Zeb’s face, and Ezra figured the worry was for Zeb. Which made a lot more sense than the weird idea that they were worried about _him_.

“We can bring down the stow-cot from the living area, Zeb,” Hera offered.

The Lasat shook his head. “Nah. That thing’s like sleeping on a Hipran’s spines.” He eyed the ladder again and gave out a bracing chuff. “Nine rungs,” he told himself, holding on to Kanan’s shoulder as he walked over and looked up. “Piece of cake.”

Kanan put a hand on Zeb’s bo-rifle, and Zeb predictably tightened his own grip on the weapon. Kanan’s voice was smooth and gentle. “Might be a sweeter piece if you trust me to look after that for a few minutes.”

The look on Zeb’s face was almost fear for a second—which shouldn’t have been possible as far as Ezra was concerned—but he nodded after a moment. And then he stuck out the rifle to Ezra himself.

“Hold that for me, kid, would ya?”

Ezra couldn’t have been more astonished. The one time he’d touched the weapon before, Zeb had been very clear and very serious about the death of a certain loth-rat. Ezra nodded and took the weapon without a word. It was still hot from the fight.

He watched Kanan the whole time Zeb was climbing up, but if the Jedi was helping him by using whatever it was Ezra himself had done earlier, Ezra couldn’t see it. Zeb made it to the top and waited for Kanan to come up and help him. Which didn’t worry Ezra even more. Really.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Ezra asked Hera again, as they followed the other two down the hall. The bo-rifle was _heavy_. “I mean, he doesn’t need a medcenter or anything?”

Zeb snorted as Kanan helped him sit on the edge of his bunk. “I had worse on the training grounds when I was your age, kid,” he assured him. Which was clearly a total lie. And there was something going on beyond pain here.

“Ezra, maybe you should stay with Zeb,” Hera suggested. 

Zeb shook his head, the bunk screeching quietly as he flopped onto his back and closed his eyes. “It’s okay, Hera,” he promised. “Just need a little rest and I’ll come out right.”

Kanan slapped him lightly on the knee and stood up, gesturing to Hera and Ezra to come with him. Ezra guessed Kanan knew what he was doing, leaving Zeb alone. “Get some sleep, big guy,” Kanan commanded… without really commanding anything. They kind of _were_ a family, weren’t they?

Ezra was about to follow Hera and Kanan out when he realized he was still carrying the bo-rifle, and still a little in awe that Zeb had let him. 

_“Only the Honor Guard of Lasan may carry a bo-rifle!”_

The hatred on Zeb’s face had been… really terrifying. And Kallus… Ezra hadn’t heard everything the Imperial jerk had said, but he’d heard enough: _“ **I** gave the order to use them!” _

“Just when I thought I couldn’t hate Kallus more,” Ezra murmured to himself.

“He won’t survive the next time we meet, kid. Count on it.”

Zeb sounded totally wiped out. And sad. And just…

Ezra set the bo-rifle carefully against the wall, lining it up unconsciously with the spray-painted arrow that Sabine had placed there—probably just for that purpose. “I’m sorry, Zeb.”

“For saving my life?” Zeb opened his eyes, snorted, and rolled over so he was on his side facing Ezra. “Thanks for the sentiment.”

“No, for… For Lasan. And the disruptors.” He shrugged and spread his hands because he didn’t really know how to say, “I’m sorry your whole planet was wiped out and a tool like Kallus had to rub it in your face and desecrate its memory.” Without, you know, coming out and saying it.

“The Empire’s scum any way you chop them up, Ezra,” Zeb said quietly, his large eyes serious. “‘S why we do what we do. So they won’t do it to anyone else.”

Ezra nodded. Yeah… He was beginning to get that.

Zeb closed his eyes. “Now get out and let me get some sleep so’s I can kill that Imperial sheb the next time I see him.”

Ezra smiled. “Hey. It’s still my room, too.”

Zeb opened one eye in warning.

Ezra laughed and threw his hands up in surrender. “I’m going, I’m going!”

His roommate was already snoring by the time the door closed behind him. _Guess_ I'm _taking the stow-cot_ , he grumbled silently.

“I know, Hera. You were right.”

Kanan’s voice was serious, barely heard as Ezra approached the common room. He snuck forward without opening the door and listened.

“I know you’re scared, Kanan,” Hera began. _Scared of_ what? Ezra didn't like hearing what he couldn't see. Luckily.... He looked around quickly. Air vents....

“It’s not that,” Kanan denied. He blew out a big breath as Ezra slid silently toward the vent in the wall behind the seating area. “He’s powerful, Hera—even more powerful than I thought he was. No untrained kid should have been that precise with his hit.” Kanan was standing in the middle of the room. Ezra saw him run a hand over his hair and ducked back for fear Kanan might look up and see him. “The first time I tried a force push, I shoved the master into a wall and broke a droid," Kanan continued. "The target I was trying to move didn’t even budge.”

 _Wow._ Ezra looked down at his hands, remembering the feeling of Kallus sailing through the air. Were Jedi really that powerful?

“All the more reason to teach him to use it.” Hera stood up from the seating directly in front of the vent and briefly blocked Ezra’s view of Kanan. Then she started pacing and Ezra could see the worry on Kanan’s face again. So it _was_ worry for him. “And he has to know _when_ to use it.” Hera stopped pacing, and Ezra had just the right angle to see her close her eyes. “Kallus already believes Ezra’s your apprentice. If he finds out what Ezra can do…”

Ezra froze. 

“I know,” Kanan said quietly. “I know. Trust me.” His grin was… regretful and sad. What had happened to him when he was a Jedi anyway? “I have a lot of experience with hiding what we are.” And then he looked at the vent, straight into Ezra’s eyes. “First thing I have to teach him is how to sneak around without getting caught.”

Ezra shrugged at the inevitable and slid out of the ducting to join them. “I thought I already knew how to do that,” he grumbled.

Kanan smiled kindly. “We can all use some improvement.”

“I’m sorry,” Ezra said, looking at both of them in turn. “I… I didn’t even know I was doing it. I just—I saw Kallus raising that bo-rifle and—”

“You had to do something,” Hera completed for him. “I know, Ezra, and I can’t tell you what would have happened if you hadn’t.” She sighed. “But you have to be careful.”

“The Republic was a different time, Ezra,” Kanan schooled him. “Back then, the Jedi were the protectors of the Force. The peacekeepers.” He sighed and his eyes went far-off. “Back then they could show themselves for who they were.”

“Who _they_ were?” Ezra asked on instinct. He could feel something in the air. Something like regret. Guilt. And it wasn’t his.

“Who we were,” Kanan corrected himself. He blew out another breath and stepped forward to put a hand on Ezra’s shoulder—and why did Ezra feel so peaceful when Kanan did that, anyway? “I haven’t been a Jedi in a long time, Ezra,” he warned. “This won’t be like the temple where I grew up—nothing like the stories you might have heard.”

Ezra nodded. He got that. _“Don’t let the Empire fool you, Ezra,” his mother had told him when he was little. “The Jedi were put into this world to help. They weren’t traitors.”_

“They were justice,” he whispered, completing the memory.

“What?” Hera asked.

Ezra looked up at Kanan, at the determination in his eyes. Something sang between them and Ezra took a deep breath and mentally leaned into it. Kanan’s eyes widened.

“I’m in,” Ezra said aloud, though he figured Kanan already knew that. A holoshot of a friend of his father flashed into his mind, a soldier for the Republic. A Jedi and his apprentice had been in the background of the shot and his mother had always made sure he knew what they were. “I don’t have to get that haircut though, do I?” 

Kanan smiled, then tipped his head as if considering it. “It _is_ tradition,” he told him. 

Ezra shook his head, imagining how stupid he’d look with that short hair and braid. “Well if we’re blazing a new trail, that’s one tradition we’re burning out, right there.”

Kanan grinned and squeezed his shoulder. “Deal.” 

And so it began: the eve of Ezra’s training. Unwilling to disturb Zeb—just this one night—he pulled out the cot in the corner as Hera and Kanan went to their quarters, but it was a couple of long hours before he could sleep. 

He couldn’t _wait_ for tomorrow.

************

tbc...

  
  
  



	3. This Thing Between Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place between "Fighter Flight" and "Rise of the Old Masters". Quite a bit longer, but then, there was a fair amount of time between those two eps, apparently.

“See the bowl and the air around it.”

Kanan’s voice was a sort of muted buzz in his mind, though he knew his teacher was sitting right across the table. _Teacher._ That sounded nice.

“Ezra, you’re losing focus,” Kanan chided quietly as Ezra heard the bowl clatter against the table. 

He opened his eyes and blushed. “Sorry.” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and started again. The bowl was heavy, but he was lifting it. 

Kind of.

“The space between you and the bowl holds the energy,” Kanan continued. “The Force _is_ that energy.”

Did all teachers sound like this, or was it just Jedi? Ezra hadn’t had an actual teacher since he was a little kid. He’d gone back to his parents’ house after… well, _after_ … and grabbed a few of his favorite holovids, and he’d stolen and even bought some others as he grew, but he’d never—

The sound of the bowl smashing on the floor popped Ezra’s eyes open again.

“Sorry.”

Kanan smiled at the apology. “Not as easy at it seems, is it?”

Ezra sat back, feeling the sweat on his forehead, dripping toward his eyebrows. “It’s hard,” he agreed. “Back with Kallus, I just… did it. You know?”

“I do,” Kanan replied.

“Did you really slam your teacher into a wall?” Ezra had to ask.

Kanan’s lips flattened out in irritation. “You’d been listening longer than I thought, last week.” He sighed, sitting back himself. “The answer is yes. I did.” He smirked. “Granted, Master Gulali was only a meter tall, but…”

Ezra nodded. “So do I call you Master, then?” he asked with a teasing grin.

There was a weird… something… between them for a second. Like the regret Ezra had felt before. But something else as well. “I’m not actually a Jedi knight, so no.” Kanan grinned, too, but it was tight and small. “Just Kanan.”

Ezra wanted to ask what had happened in the _worst_ way. But he didn’t. 

“Sounds good to me,” Ezra replied, considering whether to pick up the dish himself or make Chopper do it. “My last teacher was Madame Jitta, and she made me eat fotouo root for lunch every day. I used to feed it to the class loth-pup when she wasn’t looking.” He rose reluctantly to clean up the dish—Chopper had enough chances to make fun of him as it was, right? “Granted, I _was_ only seven at the time, but…”

Kanan was silent for a long moment and Ezra kicked himself mentally. He didn’t need anyone feeling sorry for him. He’d done pretty good for himself. Not that Mom and Dad would be proud of him or anything, but he’d survived, which was more than a lot of people could say.

“School was overrated anyway,” he hurried on when it got too uncomfortable. “I picked up what I needed.”

“You certainly seemed to,” Kanan agreed, and Ezra loved it that his teacher was just going to let this drop. 

Kanan watched him clean up the pottery shards and dump them in the recycler before he spoke again. “You and Zeb seem to be getting along better.”

Ezra was thrown by the question. “Yeah. I guess. I mean… he’s not that bad.”

“He said the same about you.” Kanan chuckled at Ezra’s astonished look. “Maybe you just needed to get to know each other.”

Ezra thought of the flight over Mr. Sumar’s ruined farm. “Maybe.” He snorted. “He’s just annoying sometimes, you know?”

“Bratty older brother,” Kanan agreed softly.

The words made Ezra’s heart do a little flip and his words stuttered. “How… How old is… Zeb?” 

“Older than me,” Kanan replied.

No way! “That’d make _him_ the dad,” he said without thinking. “And that’s just weird.”

“The dad?” Kanan asked. 

Ezra blushed fiercely and looked anywhere but at his friend. “Well, yeah. Sabine said you all were like a family. Hera is definitely the mom of the ship, and... “ He did meet Kanan’s eyes this time and saw a little awe, which confused him. “I kind of thought of you as the dad, you know?”

Kanan was quiet a moment. “Well, Lasat do grow pretty slowly, so maybe age is relative.”

“Yeah,” Ezra agreed, glad he hadn’t made Kanan mad or insulted him or anything. “At least Hera’s calmed down and she's not going to throw us out anymore.”

He’d said it like a joke, but when it happened… He’d been waiting for it. Sure, the rest of them were family, but who’d take him in for good, right?

Kanan leaned forward, looking serious. Obviously, it wasn’t as much a joke as Ezra had hoped.

“Ezra you know that would never happen, right?” He meant it. It came from his words and the Force between them at the same time. “Once you’re Hera’s, you’re sort of hers for life.”

Ezra nodded and words slipped out that he hadn’t meant to say. Happened _so_ often around here. “What about you?”

Kanan leaned forward and gripped his shoulder. “Me, too. That family includes you now, whether you like it or not.” And then he sat back again and smirked. “Though I could deal with a little less rough-housing around here.” 

“Now, see, that’s a Dad voice.”

Kanan chuckled. “You two remind me of a couple of guys I used to know. Giving each other a hard time seemed to be their number one past time.”

“Guys you knew? At the temple?” Shab. Ezra hadn’t meant to ask that, either. But now he had, there was no going back. Kanan sat frozen. Whatever had happened to him during the Purge, it was bad. 

_Of course it was bad, you idiot,_ he berated himself. _Almost every Jedi in the galaxy was killed. Probably everyone he knew._

He realized that Kanan hadn’t spoken yet and wondered if he would.

“After that,” Kanan replied finally, again that tight smile and that song of regret between them. He stood up and took a deep breath. “You did good today, Ezra,” he offered. “Let’s pick it up again tomorrow.”

Ezra nodded, watching his teacher walk out.

And trying to remember that he’d walk back in in the morning.

*********

Kanan didn’t leave his quarters until he was sure everyone was asleep. Then he crept up to the topside gun and sat down, staring out at the field of sweetstalk around them. He didn’t look up at the stars.

_“Guys you knew? At the temple?”_

Images of Big Mouth and Soot… and later Stance… rolled through his mind. His own clone army—his and Master Billaba’s. _After._ After and before. 

What was he doing, really? He wasn’t even two years out of his initiate when the Purge came. He knew nothing. He’d taught himself to survive, sure, but Ezra already knew how to do that. What was he really bringing to the table as a Jedi?

“Bad memories and pain,” he murmured at the black landscape beyond the windows.

And what would that give Ezra? 

Words came to him. A memory he wanted to forget and cling to all at once. The first time he and Depa had truly talked. “I think _my_ usefulness as a commander in the field is suspect, too, Master.” Master Billaba was out there, somewhere in the energy that bound them all together. He had to wonder if she’d find his choice to teach Ezra… unwise.

Probably. 

And then he smiled. Depa would probably also say that he was ready if he thought he was ready. If he _could_ be ready. After all, he’d been a year young when he passed his examinations and became a Padawan. The Force _had_ been strong with him. Even so, they didn’t want him paired up, but she’d insisted. Master Billaba loved how he questioned the way things were always done.

Maybe now was no different. Maybe the way it was done before was the way it was done before because it was the way they’d always done it, not because it was the only way it _could_ be done. 

He reached out to feel the spark of Ezra’s mind, slumbering away.

Maybe change was change for a reason.

***********

Ezra slumped down in the sweetstalk, exhausted. 

Three hours they’d been at this. With _sticks_. He hadn’t even seen Kanan’s lightsaber in days.

“Take a minute to rest,” Kanan told him, but with an edge to his voice. The edge was there a lot lately. Fifteen days after the bowl incident, and Kanan was pushing him harder and harder. And Ezra just… wasn’t very good at a lot of it. And if he heard the word focus one more time, he was going to scream. It was like the only word Kanan knew these days.

“Let’s get back to work,” Kanan said after far too little time. He raised his own stick, shoulder high, stick aimed forward and down, standing frozen and expectant at Ezra’s side until Ezra rose and copied his stance. “Let’s begin with form three,” Kanan said. Again. They always started with form three. Ezra started going through the routine, moving from form to form as Kanan called them out.

There were a lot of forms. And stances and moves and things Ezra didn’t do well! Sure, he could jump through hoops and over buildings, and he could move a bowl or a bad guy, but the rest of this stuff? The temple-type stuff? He hadn’t had a soul who cared for him or did for him or even told him what to do since he was seven years old, and it showed. He was “unfocused and undisciplined.” Which was apparently the worst thing he could be.

“Form _one,_ Ezra!” Kanan almost barked as Ezra flowed into form five by mistake. “Clear your mind and _focus_.”

“I’m doing the best I can,” Ezra defended himself, his anger flaring with his exhaustion. He swallowed the scream that wanted to come out. “Sorry I’m not… _padawan_ enough.”

“Well, no padawan would treat his master with this kind of disrespect, that’s for sure.”

“I thought you _weren’t_ a master, Kanan.” 

Ezra knew immediately that he’d pushed it too far. His breath wouldn’t leave his chest, trapped and waiting.

“Ezra…” Kanan began, anger shining through the increasingly cloudy connection between them. He caught himself immediately and took a deep breath. The kind of deep breath that was always followed by… “Let’s call it a day.”

Yep. There it was. He might say that _Hera_ would never kick him out, but Ezra was beginning to wonder when _Kanan’s_ patience would finally hit its limit. The thing between them that Ezra couldn’t figure out—disappointment, anger, _something_ —seemed to grow every time he couldn’t do something. 

He figured Kanan’s druk meter was nearly full. And then Ezra’d be sent packing.

“Ezra,” Hera called over the coms. He looked up at the bridge and saw her looking down at the two of them practicing. Or failing, depending on how you looked at it. “Chopper needs some help with the waste valves. They’re sticking again.”

Ezra looked up at Kanan and saw him nod with that frown on his face. “Go.”

So he went. _Trash dealing with trash,_ he thought as he jogged back to the ship. _Now that’s appropriate._

**********

Kanan sat silent in his quarters, trying to let go of the day and meditate. 

Hera had called him to the bridge after she’d sent Ezra on his errand, and chewed him out. He didn’t have to snipe at the boy so much. He didn’t have to grind him down like that. This wasn’t the Jedi temple on Coruscant.

“Ezra isn’t you, Kanan,” she reminded him unnecessarily. “He wasn’t born to this.”

“No,” Kanan agreed angrily. “He wasn’t.” _And thank the Force for him that he isn’t me._

“So don’t you think you’re riding him a little hard?”

Kanan didn’t know. He didn’t _know_ if he was riding him too hard. He didn’t _know_ anything! There had been exactly one Jedi Master who wanted to train him and she hadn’t lived long enough to finish the job!

“Kanan, he looks up to you,” Hera said quietly. Twisting the knife. 

“Maybe that was his first mistake.”

Taking a deep breath and letting go of Depa’s patient smile and Hera’s sad gaze and disappointment, he fell back on the old words. Maybe there he’d find some way to make this work.

 _Emotion, yet peace…  
_ _Ignorance, yet knowledge…._  
 _Passion, yet serenity…_  
 _Chaos, yet harmony—_

His eyes snapped open far too quickly and he rose, too agitated to stay still a moment longer.

“How’s that knowledge thing working out?” he asked himself bitterly, opening the door and heading toward the cargo hold. He needed _away_.

_The ignorance thing is going great, thanks for asking._

All this time, all this work, and Ezra wasn’t learning anything. And it wasn’t even his fault, really—though he had a mouth on him that no self-respecting master would put up with. _Which puts_ you _where, Kanan?_

The raw power was there, but… “The teacher is lacking.”

Maybe he’d always been lacking. 

_“So many questions, Caleb Dume,” Master Gulali chastised. “For every question, must there_ be _an answer?”_

_He’d looked at the old Sullustan master like he was crazy—and immediately tried to hide the response. “If not, why ask the question?”_

_“Because sometimes,” Master Windu said from the doorway, his words and appearance startling them all, “the question itself_ is _the answer.”_

Kanan walked out into the night, away from the ship and his friends and the endless expectation of what he’d taken on.

_“Kanan, he looks up to you.”_

He finally stopped and gazed up at the stars and asked a question he _knew_ had no answer.

“Why in the five hells would he do that?”

If only Ezra had a _real_ Jedi to teach him.

************

tbc....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ezra's not kidding, you know—Kanan says "focus" or some version thereof eight times in the first ten minutes of "Rise of the Old Masters".


	4. Keep the Wolves Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Rise of the Old Masters. That whole thing was kind of frightening, wasn't it?

“I’m not making deals with you.” Kanan stepped back, trying to refocus and find another way. 

The Inquisitor did the same, it seemed. “Hmm. Then we’ll let _him_ make one, shall we?”

And suddenly, Kanan was flying, blasting past Ezra and slamming into the floorplates, meters down the hall. His head rang with the impact and a white noise filled his ears for precious moments.

“—perfect for each other,” Ezra growled, his stunshot sizzling over and over as Kanan tried to get his wits about him.

“I do so admire your persistence,” the Inquisitor taunted.

_Get it together, Kanan. Damn it, get it together!_

“Are you ready to die?”

“NO!” Kanan launched himself to a seated position, flinging out with all he had to grab the Inquisitor away. To keep Ezra safe.

“Too late, Jedi,” the Inquisitor called pleasantly. 

And it was. Too skrogging late. 

The Inquisitor’s blade flew forward, independent of its master, the red tip slashing Ezra from shoulder to knee, diagonal across him in a killing blow. It happened so fast, the kid didn’t even scream.

But Kanan did.

“EZRRRAAA!”

Kanan sat up hard, heart slamming in his chest as he desperately tried to catch his breath.

“Shab,” he whispered after a long moment. “Hope I didn’t wake the whole ship.”

He sat quietly, allowing the terror to drain out of him, listening for anyone reacting to his nightmare. The ship was as silent as it ever was. He must not have called out, then. 

Unbidden, the images assaulted him again. The Inquisitor knew them now. Knew _him_ , even though the most thorough of temple records would never bring Kanan Jarrus’s name to light.

_“You studied under Depa Billaba… Clearly you were a poor student.”_

He’d be coming for them eventually. He’d have no choice, and neither would they. 

“Not the best thoughts after a nightmare, Kanan,” he told himself sharply. He sucked in a breath and cleared his mind. They’d be safe for a while. Stygeon Prime was a long way from Lothal. The galaxy was huge, and they could lay low. Take fewer chances for a while as Ezra’s skills grew.

Ezra’s presence, clearer than it had been for a while, was reassuring in the next berth. They’d trained this afternoon the way they should, the way he and Depa had—not the same forms, but the same partnership. Kanan had been impressed with Ezra’s progress, and for once in recent history, Ezra had been happy.

And about kriffing time. Force, he was an idiot. He wondered if Master Billaba had felt the same things he was feeling when she trained her first Padawan, if she’d pushed instead of leading. Kanan knew of three Jedi she’d had apprenticed to her in the years before her disaster against Grievous. She’d either been older than she looked or a teacher who could impart her knowledge quickly. He had only had her for a year and change, and he was beginning to realize just how much he’d learned from her.

_“Describe what you feel, Caleb Dume.”_

_“I have questions, Master.” And didn’t he always? And didn’t she always have time for them?_

_“Yes, that seems to be the natural state of your mind. But what about your heart?”_

_“My heart is at peace.”_

And it was. He wasn’t Jedi Master Depa Billaba. He wasn’t Grand Master Yoda. He wasn’t even the Padawan Caleb Dume.

He was Kanan Jarrus, Jedi-in-between, and that was going to have to be enough. He could—no, he _would_ teach Ezra Bridger, and the kid _would_ flourish. There was just no reason for him not to.

A shift in the Force had Kanan suddenly on alert and he rose quickly, moving to the door and silently out into the hallway. What was—

A thump in the berth next door. A muttered curse in Ezra’s voice, barely heard through the metal.

Kanan opened the door to Zeb and Ezra’s quarters to find that Ezra had fallen from his bunk to the floor, and the look on the kid’s face when he saw him—half terror and grief, half astonished wonder—stopped him in his tracks.

“Kanan?” The small word was packed with questions.

Kanan reached down to draw the boy up, and Ezra latched on, still half in the terror of the nightmare. “Yeah, kid. Let’s get you up off the floor.”

Ezra nodded, not working all engines, and allowed himself to be pulled to standing.

“Caf?” Kanan asked with a gentle smile.

“Oh yeah,” Ezra agreed, finally starting to come around. “No way I’m going back to bed tonight.”

Kanan kept his mouth shut as he made the caf strong, giving Ezra a chance to come down from whatever he’d seen. Given his own nightmare, Kanan had a pretty good idea.

“There you go,” he said finally, putting the mug silently before his apprentice. “That should keep the wolves away.”

“Yeah, but for how long?” Ezra muttered, grimacing at the drink’s bitterness. He clearly hadn’t meant to be heard.

“Until we can train you,” Kanan answered anyway. “Until we’re ready to face the Inquisitor together.”

“He killed you,” Ezra whispered. “In my dream. He threw you, just like he did in real life. I was useless—I couldn’t stop him. It was like he didn’t even care that I was there. He just walked past me and his saber…”

“Yeah,” Kanan replied. “He pulled the same trick on me.” He took a sip from his mug and continued. “Ezra, I’m not going to lose you to him like I did in my nightmare, okay?”

Ezra nodded, silent.

“And you’re _not_ useless. But he was right. I haven’t taught you enough.”

“If that op was anything to go by, you have a lot to teach,” Ezra murmured. He looked up and Kanan saw, not hero worship, thank the Force, but an awed respect. “You were amazing.”

Kanan remembered the feeling of focus and frustration and anger and power. Amazing? Maybe. But not because he’d been using the Force correctly. _Emotion, yet peace._ He was still working on that.

“I’ll teach you better,” he promised.

Ezra just sipped his caf and worried. “This is a lot harder than messing with the stormtroopers in Capital City,” he said finally. “They didn’t usually mess back.” He looked up at Kanan. “Kallus is bad enough, but how do we keep _this_ guy off our backs?”

“We won’t be able to forever,” Kanan warned. He’d already discussed this with Hera. The rules for the Ghost’s crew were going to change, whether they liked it or not. 

“Way to make me feel better,” Ezra snarked.

“It’s not my job to make you feel better, Ezra. It’s my job to keep you alive.”

Ezra nodded reluctantly. 

“We train.” Kanan sat forward. “We train, we plan, and we lay low for a while. Make it hard for him to pick us out.”

“But he will,” Ezra said, fear still thick in his voice. “I mean, that’s what inquisitors do, right? Hunt down Jedi? Kill them?”

They did worse than that, but Ezra didn’t need to know that. The kid didn’t have it in him to let the darkness in, the way Kanan had when he was young—the way he had, just a little, on this op. Each moment hung in his mind, a tipping point he could never forget, lest it happen again and catch him unaware. That was the thing the Inquisitors waited for. The chance to _turn_ a Jedi, rather than kill.

But Ezra didn’t need to know that. So Kanan smiled, trying to put his young friend at ease. If only for a moment. 

“Not if the Jedi get him first.”

*********

tbc...


	5. Vigilance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between "Breaking Ranks" and "Out of the Darkness."

**After The Battle of Kardoa, at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant**

_“You are recovered, I see?”_

_Master Billaba met him at the entrance to the medical wing, and Caleb—aching and sore and still_ really _tired, even after a week in the bacta tank—fell into step with her as she led him back to the temple proper._

_He had been injured in the battle. Badly. Two laser blasts to his torso and he’d fallen. He’d’ve died without one of the clone troopers standing over his unconscious body, refusing to sacrifice a padawan for his own safety._

_“I’m okay,” he offered deferentially._

_Master Billaba smiled. “Dishonesty does not become you, child.”_

_“Stance,” he said quietly, thinking of the young, vibrant, thank-the-Force still alive trooper who had stood over him while the battle raged. “He could have died for me.”_

_Depa nodded, preceding him into the tower elevator and ordering it to deposit them by her quarters. “He could have. Many soldiers have died for the Jedi, as you know.”_

_“But not for_ me _.”_

_She said nothing until they were both seated at her meditation area, the windows before them overlooking the hive that was Coruscant._

_“Why do you think he chose to do what he did, Caleb Dume?” she asked finally, the ritualistic sound of the words telling him he’d be taught today whether he wanted to or no._

_Caleb thought about it. His muscles ached to be holding him upright after so many days of floating. “Because I wasn’t paying attention. I wasn’t aware enough of my surroundings.” He’d rushed out ahead, high on the fight, and it had almost cost his life and another’s._

_“I did not ask why he_ needed _to do it,” she chided. “Although you are correct in naming your mistake, and it is one from which you must learn. I asked why he_ chose _to do it.”_

_And that was what was really bothering Caleb. “I don’t know.”_

_Master Billaba said nothing, the silence uncomfortable, like a spiny Knoctar crawling across his mind and itching as it went._

_“We had only just met—he barely knew me,” Caleb said finally, tired of being uncomfortable. But the end to the silence didn’t answer anything. “He waited for me to recover, even.” Stance had been there at the bacta tank when Caleb emerged._

_“Would you have done the same for him?” she asked finally._

_“Of course!” At least_ that _question was easy to answer._

_His master didn’t seem to think so. “Many would not, young one. He is a clone. Nothing more.”_

_“All life deserves protection, Master,” Caleb argued. “Doesn’t it?” He didn’t really believe that she thought the clones were nothing. She seemed to know every man in her command by name or number, which was a feat with an army that all looked the same to an outsider._

_Depa Billaba smiled proudly, proving him right. “It does.” She rose fluidly and Caleb struggled to follow suit. Stars, but he_ hurt _. “And so I believe you have your answer. All life deserves protection.” She looked out at the city beyond the glass. “But there are few to protect it, and those few must be vigilant.”_

_“I will be, Master,” he promised._

_“And perhaps less reckless?” she teased. She overlooked his blush, as she always did. “But now, Padawan, you must rest.”_

**Now, in hyperspace, 20 parsecs out from Lothal**

“If only I could,” Kanan sighed, the memory fading as he opened his eyes and gave up trying to lull himself to sleep.

Three weeks.

Three weeks, Ezra had been out in the field. Alone. Kanan hadn’t slept a night through the entire time. And now the kid was back, the kyber crystal shipment was glittering space dust, and another Force-sensitive child would be protected. 

And _no_ , Kanan wasn’t teaching him. Ezra was enough of a challenge. Ezra, who was home safe.

So you’d think Kanan would be exhausted. You’d think he’d stretch out on his bunk and sleep for a month, but no. Here he was, in the middle of the night, wide awake and worried.

_“Do you really think you can save the boy?”_

The Inquisitor. He was like a bograt, waiting in the corners of Kanan’s mind, ready to strike. And he was coming now. Kallus would confirm that he’d seen Ezra with the local rebels and the Inquisitor would tear Lothal apart looking for them. For Ezra.

_“The dark side lures,” Yoda used to say. “It calls. Easy, it looks. Powerful. But there, destruction lies.”_

Destruction. A kind of destruction that was worse than death. He couldn’t let that happen to Ezra, but he wasn’t sure he had the power to stop it. 

He was aware that he hadn’t been “fighting pure,” as Stiles used to say, for a while. Not really since the Battle of Kaller. There was too much in his mind, in his heart. Anger and fear and abandonment and he _was_ damaged. He knew that. He wasn’t stupid enough to think the Inquisitor meant anything but death for him, but if he couldn’t teach Ezra with a mind aligned strictly to the light, wasn’t he just setting the kid up for failure?

_“To hide from yourself is to open yourself to the dark side,” Master Nattah had always warned. “Truth is the power of a Jedi.”_

Truth was power. “Okay,” Kanan said quietly. “So I’m scared.”

He was scared he wouldn’t be able to ready Ezra for the coming fight. He was scared he’d watch that bright light of the Force swallowed up by the darkness, or worse, watch the light snuffed out entirely. He was even scared of dying himself, truth be told.

But you know who wasn’t scared? Ezra.

The kid had come back, glad to have rescued Jai, worried about Zare and his fate back at the training center, and ready to resume his life on the _Ghost_ as if nothing had happened.

“What are we going to do about the Inquisitor?” Sabine had asked, once they’d all gotten to sit down together and debrief.

“Bet he’s hooked up with Kallus and figured out what was going on,” Zeb pointed out. “He’s probably tearing things apart already, looking for the two of you.”

Yeah. Kanan was pretty sure that was exactly what he was doing.

“So we take to the skies,” Ezra suggested reasonably. “If he’s gonna scour Lothal, we make sure we’re not here.”

Hera had nodded. “I don’t think we have any other choice right now.” She looked at Ezra for a long moment, as worried as Kanan was. “We need to move Jai and his mom anyway. Let me contact Fulcrum and find out where we can take them. Maybe we take a job or two and stay away for a while.”

It was as good a plan as any. 

Kanan had hung back as everyone else filed out of the common area. “Ezra?”

Ezra turned, calm and smiling where Kanan himself was tight and stressed. “Yeah, Kanan?”

And now he had the kid’s attention, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. “I’m not going to let him get to you,” he finally offered lamely.

Ezra grinned. “ _We’re_ not going to let him get to _us_ ,” he replied confidently. And then he left to go devil Chopper again. Like nothing happened.

_“The confidence of the young is a fragile thing,” Master Windu had said, when Caleb stood before the Jedi Council to request his post as Padawan to Master Billaba. “It’s as likely to collapse into failure as to flourish into victory."_

And wasn’t that the truth? His own youthful confidence had nearly killed him—and Stance. He didn’t want Ezra’s to do the same.

The bulkhead shifted slightly as the doors to Zeb and Ezra’s quarters breezed open next door, and Kanan’s exhausted mind suddenly clued into the fact that Ezra was awake, too. 

Force, he was tired. 

As they’d trained, in the weeks before Ezra had gone undercover, their bond had grown stronger and stronger. Kanan had been able to reach out and poke the kid when the Force was blowing just right. But now he was too tired to feel anything clearly.

So he was just going to have to get up and go find the kid and see what was going on. Maybe Ezra wasn’t as confident as he was pretending to be.

Kanan followed his apprentice to the cargo hold, but watched silently from the top of the ladder as the young man stood in the middle of the largest space in the ship, eyes closed and left hand raised. The power of the Force hummed softly in the air.

A large box rumbled and shifted roughly for a moment before gliding of its own volition to nestle neatly into the corner. They’d picked up a freight shipment to make a little money after dropping off Jai and his mother, and the crate was full of machine parts bound for one of the larger agricultural planets in the area. It probably weighed in excess of a quarter ton.

A medium sized box followed, floating unsteadily to rest atop the first. A smaller one then wobbled dangerously at it reached a height of about three meters, then calmed and rested on the first two.

It was pretty impressive, actually. 

“How did you get in practice in the training center?” Kanan wanted to know. Ezra hadn’t been this good at that when he’d left.

Ezra’s eyes popped open and he looked up to see Kanan descending the ladder to join him. “I didn’t,” he said quietly. “Mostly I just thought about how to do it in my head.”

A memory, sharp and cold, assaulted Kanan. He had done the same, just before his initiate trials. He’d spent night after night running through scenarios in his head: how he’d use what gift to complete which task.

“Pretty smart,” he murmured.

Ezra grinned in thanks for the praise. “I got to use a lot of what you taught me to win the trials there, but I think they’d’ve been a little suspicious if I’d suddenly started lifting speeders and things.”

“I think they’re pretty suspicious anyway, don’t you?” Kanan replied, not nearly so upbeat.

“Hey, they were going to figure it out some time anyway.” Ezra sat down on one of the boxes that littered the floor. “I’m glad we had to wear those helmets all the time. If we hadn’t, I’d’ve had to duck every time Kallus came into the main hangars.”

“I should never have sent you in there,” Kanan growled, angry at himself. How could he possibly have made the kid take such a risk?

“So that they could have scooped up Jai?” Ezra asked incredulously. “I’m pretty sure the Inquisitor had plans for the two of us that didn’t include a quick execution.”

He was totally calm when he said it, and that was beyond disconcerting. “You can’t be so relaxed about this, Ezra. Don’t you understand what could happen if they catch you?”

“Oh yeah,” Ezra replied, and Kanan was glad to hear at least a little bit of fear in his voice. “But…” He gestured to the boxes. “That’s why I’m doing this.” He shook his head. “Not the boxes—or not _only_ the boxes—but the whole thing. The harder I train, the readier we’ll be, right?” He set his feet on the floor and stood tall. “I’m wiped, but I just couldn’t sleep ‘til I saw whether I could really do this.” He yawned and stretched. “So what am I learning tomorrow?”

Kanan couldn’t help it. He laughed. 

“Kanan?”

Here he was, worried out of his mind that Ezra wouldn’t be ready, that he wouldn’t be able to do anything to face the Inquisitor when the time came, and the kid had been one step—ten steps!—ahead of him the whole time.

“Seriously, Kanan,” Ezra said over Kanan’s admittedly slightly hysterical laughter. “You okay?”

_Those few must be vigilant._

“Let’s tackle shielding,” he said as he calmed down, poking Ezra through the Force. “If the Inquisitor can’t feel you, he’ll have a harder time anticipating your moves.”

Ezra frowned at him and tried—badly—to poke him back. “I could use that.”

 _Yes,_ Kanan thought, remembering the feel of the Inquisitor as they fought; the way the man tried to probe, looking for weak spots. _Yes, you could use that._

_We both could._

“And then we need to work on your sword skills.”

“Shouldn’t I have my own lightsaber for that?” Ezra asked with a cagey grin as the two of them headed back to the ladder by unspoken agreement.

“All in good time, Ezra,” Kanan assured him. 

Was there a Jedi temple hidden somewhere in this sector? There almost had to be, right?

*********

tbc...


	6. Need to Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After "Out of Darkness."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought all of these were going to be Kanan and Ezra, but this is all Hera.

Hera headed for the cockpit, exhaustion weighing on her after the stressful day. Stress that didn’t just come from the creatures at the clone base. Kanan sat at the controls, but slid over into the copilot’s seat so she could collapse into her own chair.

“Are you sure you two are okay?” he asked quietly. He eyed her like she was about to fall apart, but he knew better than that.

“We’re okay,” she replied. “I think.”

“She’s still pressuring you for Fulcrum’s identity,” he guessed. 

“Not as much as before, but…” She sighed. “I’m not sure she really understands the stakes, you know?” She looked out at hyperspace as it streaked along around them. They’d have to stay out here a couple more weeks. Give the Inquisitor time to move on. 

“She’s got her own past to deal with,” Kanan reminded her lightly.

Hera snorted. “Oh yeah, we covered that. She actually mentioned that she didn’t need this to become another nightmare for her.”

“Does she realize what a nightmare it would be for all of us if one of us was ever captured and knew enough to talk?”

“ _I_ didn’t,” she reminded him, turning away from the spectacle before her to look at the man who’d become so integral to her life. “Not until you explained it to me.”

“I don’t want to know _anything_ ,” Kanan had said staunchly, the first time she’d tried to discuss a meeting she’d had with one of her contacts. At the time, she’d thought he was falling back on the carefree scoundrel persona she’d thought he’d shed months before.

“Kanan, stop that. I know you care about what we’re doing here—”

“Exactly,” he replied. “And that’s _why_ I don’t want to know.”

She’d shaken her head at him, not understanding in the least. Sure, she’d always kept everything close to the vest, but that was because she’d worked alone. Now that they were working together, he should know what they were doing this for, right? They were isolated from the other rebels she knew of by codenames and silent meets. But Kanan was _here,_ right beside her.

“I’m the one out in the field most of the time,” he said. “You’re here in the Ghost. Safe. Insulated. It’s a lot easier to capture _me_ —or any other being you might recruit to the cause—than it is to capture _you_. That’s why _you_ have to be the one to keep the contacts.”

“I don’t see what that has to do—”

“We had history lessons in the Temple,” he broke in. “Some of the history was not so ancient. Stories of what went wrong when too many people knew too much.”

“But surely—”

“The Empire has tools, Hera,” he’d explained gently. “If I was ever captured, any information I had could be theirs.”

Hera had smiled at that, trying not to be unsettled by his serious eyes. “Are you saying a Jedi would break?” she joked uneasily.

Kanan hadn’t been joking at all. “More than one has.” He’d looked out at the planet they’d been in orbiting at the time and the haunted look in those eyes had stopped her from asking any questions. “And a Jedi can be broken in a lot of very destructive ways.”

“Sabine will understand eventually,” Kanan assured her, reaching out to lightly grasp her hand.

Hera smiled. “What would I do without you?”

Kanan rose and leaned down to put a kiss on her lek while he squeezed her hand. “I plan for you to never find out.”

*********

tbc...


	7. Seek the Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After "Empire Day" and "Gathering Forces". Yeah, that's a whole big mess, ain't it?

_The concussion from the blast that took out the transport shook Caleb hard, leaving his head ringing and his nerves shot. It had been a harrowing day already, and it didn’t look to be getting better anytime soon._

_“TAKE COVER!” Commander Grey screamed out over the chaos._

_Stance was a calming presence at Caleb’s side, his words soft and comforting as the padawan got his nerves under control._

_“Don’t worry, Caleb,” Stance promised, inching out behind his friend with his rifle at the ready. “I got your_ **_baaaack_ ** _!”_

_Caleb didn’t even see the magnablade that ripped through Stance’s armor—not until his friend had already fallen, dead, into his arms._

_He barely heard the taunts his enemy threw at him. Stance was dead—he’d died for Caleb. The cold and hatred rose up around the young Jedi, enveloped him, his fear of death—of meeting his friend’s fate—only thickening the dark haze around him…_

“Kanan?”

_The flush of power was almost more than his already battered body could handle, but Caleb held tight to it. It was a means to his revenge._

“Kanan!”

_And, as never before, Caleb needed that revenge, Dark Side be damned._

“Kanan, love, please!”

Kanan Jarrus shook himself and looked down into Hera’s large, terrified green eyes. “I’m okay,” he murmured. Her hands were on his arms, their grip uncomfortably tight.

“Like crink you are,” she shot back mildly. 

They were in Kanan’s room. When had that happened? Last he remembered, he’d sent Ezra off and they were going to talk…

_I guess this is where we talk, then._

“Sit down and tell me what happened,” she commanded softly. 

Kanan fell into a seated position on his bed and she settled beside him.

“The Inquisitor found us,” he began. “Just like we’d planned.” His hand caught at the hair that had escaped his hair tie and he stopped himself immediately. That was something Caleb Dume would do, and Caleb was the last thing he wanted to think about right now. 

“Go on,” she urged. 

He hadn’t realized he’d stopped talking. _Get control, Kanan,_ he berated himself. _You have to get control!_

But wasn’t that what he’d done the whole ride back? Kept control so that Ezra could heal? 

Stars, _could_ Ezra heal?

“He made a connection with the shadow creatures,” he continued, his voice gaining strength. They’d discuss Ezra’s breakthrough regarding Tseebo later. If they ended up being able to discuss it at all. “It went just the way we’d planned—let the creatures take care of the stormtroopers while I faced the Inquisitor.”

_Stupid, Kanan. So, so stupid…._

“He’s good,” he whispered finally. “Too good. Slammed me down and Ezra must have confronted him while I was out.”

The silence was something so much more painful than the itchy and uncomfortable he counted on from Hera. Like she _couldn’t_ speak instead of wouldn’t.

That was okay. Neither could he.

“I woke up to… darkness.” Maybe he could speak after all. “He’d pushed Ezra too far somehow—done exactly what an Inquisitor is supposed to do to turn a padawan.” His hand slammed down on the frame of the bed, the sound of it shocking them both, new bruises adding to the pain he already felt from the drubbing the Inquisitor had given him. “Damn it, Hera—” 

_I brought him to that. I let that happen and now..._

“Breathe, Kanan,” she whispered. Her hand was in his and a soft kiss dropped on his cheek. 

It was enough for the moment to pass.

“Ezra raised a shadow creature larger than any of the others—larger than I would have thought existed—and set it on the Inquisitor.”

Hera didn’t understand. “But… that’s good? Right?”

Kanan shook his head, remembering firsthand the cold triumph of unleashing that kind of hate and fear. “No.” He looked down at her, watching her cringe away from the implications he knew were in his eyes. “Only the dark side could have done that.”

Hera’s free hand came to her mouth in shock.

Somehow that gesture—a Mom thing, Ezra would probably have said—snapped Kanan out of the past, both the near and the distant. He took a long, deep, centering breath.

“He doesn’t remember doing it,” he told her. 

Hera shook her head, lekku swinging in confusion. “What does this mean?” she asked, voice small and more lost than he’d heard from her in years.

“It means I’ve made a mistake,” he admitted. _One of so, so many._ “Ezra… He’s more like me than I gave him credit for. I guess I didn’t want to see it.”

_“If I’d let myself believe my parents were alive—If I’d let myself believe they’d come back and save me? I’d never have learned how to survive.”_

_He’d been there, right where Ezra was. Sometimes, there was no forgiving the people who’d left you. Not because they’d done the unthinkable, but because you couldn’t survive unless you just moved on without killing yourself to forgive._

“His signature?” he continued. “It’s always been this beacon. Bright, lively.” It was impossible to explain what it had been like all these months. As impossible as explaining the tarnish on it now. “I didn’t want to think he had that same darkness in him.”

 _“Providing further proof that none of us are perfect.”_ Depa Billaba’s words had never been more true. The fog of fear in his mind was lifting though, and he began, as he always had, seeking answers.

“So what do we do?” Hera asked. Because she, too, had to believe there was an answer for everything.

This time, Kanan thought there might actually be. And it was terrifying.

“When I was an initiate—before I became a padawan—I was brought to a room in the temple and told that my future lay there. A series of trials, designed to prepare a Jedi for both the light and the dark side of his nature.” He remembered it all in stark detail. Everything.

Which was why the Room of Learning existed.

“Jedi who… opened themselves too far to the dark side were often sent back to that room. To reconnect. To find the light.” He had heard rumors of what happened when those Jedi failed to find their way back. The temple sought light at all costs.

_Ezra..._

“But there’s no temple now,” Hera reminded him. “And even if there was, Coruscant is hundreds of sectors away.”

Kanan never touched a thing, but the holocron was suddenly bobbing before him.

“That wasn’t our only temple.”

**********

tbc...


	8. Past, Present, and Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between the temple and the lightsaber in "Path of the Jedi."
> 
> You don't think that's all Kanan and Yoda had to say to each other, do you?

Kanan knelt quietly on the roof of the Ghost in the fields of Lothal. The moons had both set and the sun had yet to rise. In the middle of nowhere, the only light was the dim glow of diodes that filtered up through the canopy of the topside guns.

A kyber crystal. Ezra Bridger, touched by darkness, undisciplined, unfocused, loth-rat and thief, walked into a Jedi temple with nothing but fear and enthusiasm, and walked out with a kyber crystal.

Impressive kid.

Now if Kanan himself could just guide the kid safely on his journey.

The night was a time for reflection. Always had been. It was one of the reasons that, before Hera, Kanan had tried to spend the dark hours as drunk or as occupied as possible. The past was to be forgotten, and you couldn’t do that on a moonless night.

 _“See you I can. Before I could not. Changed, something has.”_ The memory of Yoda’s words in the temple filled the darkness.

Yeah. Something had changed. When Hera had worked her magic on him, when he’d started to let the Force back in, just a little, he’d always held back. The anger and grief of what had happened was just too much to ever trust the fickle power again.

Maybe it was Ezra’s constant struggle to trust that had taught Kanan himself the need to let go. To let _in_. _“You’re connected to every living thing in the universe,”_ he’d told Ezra. _“But to discover that, you have to let your guard down.”_

And for Ezra… Kanan had. He’d taken him to the temple because he _needed_ Ezra to be safe. To be whole. To be taught.

“And now, Master are you?” Yoda had asked. Yoda… Was the old master still alive, or was it just a trick of the Force? A power of the temple itself? Whatever, it had been so good to hear his voice. “Of this decision, honest you must be.”

Kanan hadn’t bothered to lie. There was no use lying in a Jedi Temple. The walls themselves knew the truth. “It’s true. I’m not sure of my decision to train Ezra. Not because of him or his abilities, but because of me. Because of who I am.”

“Hmm,” Yoda replied, with that sound that meant, whatever you’d just said? You hadn’t thought it through hard enough. “And who are you, Caleb Dume?”

Kanan chuckled. “Not Caleb Dume, that’s for sure.”

“Sure?” Yoda pressed. “Certain are you?”

Kanan was. “Caleb died long ago, Master.” He’d mourned the child’s passing on and off over his life—in between cursing his name. “I’m just Kanan now.”

“Just?” Yoda asked, loosing a delighted laugh that made Kanan grin and yearn for Coruscant. “Hee Hee Hee! Not _just_.” Silence reigned for a moment. “Kanan you are,” Yoda said finally. “And Caleb too. Each holds the other, binds the present and the past. Only by embracing both may you face the future.”

Kanan didn’t deny his fear. “I don’t… know if I can, Master Yoda. Caleb was a long time ago.” A long time and a long line of mistakes. Maybe too many to overcome. And if he couldn’t overcome those mistakes, could he really teach Ezra to deal with his own?

“The past was he?” Yoda’s voice now was the gentle, pushing, leading tone that Kanan remembered from his tougher lessons. “Or now, is he?” 

“I’m… not that person anymore, Master,” he argued. “How can Caleb Dume be anything now? The life I’ve lived since Master Billaba died…” He’d hardly been a model _human_ a lot of the time, much less a model Jedi.

“The temple you sought,” Yoda remarked, as if that were an answer. “Remember not your own journey?”

Kanan thought back, remembering his own test at the temple. His fears then had been his fears now—which showed how little he’d learned. Loss, inadequacy, his own death, worse—the death of another in his place. The temple had shown him all of it. The pain of failure, the deaths of so many because of him… the lightness on the other end when he realized that, though what he had seen was an illusion of the Force, he could live through such a trial in real life, should it come.

And come it did, of course. He _had_ lived through, but the scars were too numerous to count.

“Master Billaba once told me she could not be a commander because she feared losing her men.” He could feel the cushions of her meditation space, see the endless activity of the city beyond the windows. 

“And yet she commanded.”

Kanan nodded, then sighed sadly. “I’m not Billaba, either.” He wasn’t that strong.

Stance’s death came to mind unbidden, and he wondered if he had looked like Ezra when he embraced the power that came with pain and anger. He wondered what Billaba’s response would have been had she seen.

“My apprentice,” he admitted quietly. “He has touched the dark side.”

“Yes,” Yoda agreed. “Felt it I have. Anger, fear, loss.”

For some reason that struck Kanan funny, and he snorted. “Are you talking about him or me?”

Yoda’s voice lightened, and Kanan could almost see the crinkles of flesh when the old one smiled. “Questions, Kanan Jarrus,” Yoda chuckled. “Always with you, there are questions.”

“And with you, few answers, Master.”

And for a second, just a second, Caleb lived.

The metal around him shifted and creaked and Kanan felt Ezra’s approach. The cool of the night was giving way to the dawn and he didn’t have to open his eyes to know that the darkness had fled.

“Up early, aren’t you?” Kanan asked without relinquishing his meditative stance.

Ezra was silent for a moment and Kanan felt the boy settle next to him and assume his own place. “I figured it’s time to get started. Right?”

Kanan opened his eyes to the morning—to the future—and smiled.

“Right.”

*******

tbc...


	9. A Deal's a Deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Idiot's Array.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanna know a secret? I hadn’t watched the second half of season three or any of season four when I started this series of scenes (Although I was spoiled as to what happened). Just finished A World Between Worlds, and… yeah.
> 
> So I’m glad this one is fluffy! I can use it to wipe my tears.

**Jaha’hai Spaceport, the planet Kiddar  
Imperial year 10**

“I don’t like it,” Kanan repeated. Again.

Hera shook her head and looked out the open door of her quarters. Despite the fact that there wasn’t a line of her body he didn’t know intimately, Kanan was now leaning against the bulkhead outside her quarters, demurely facing the opposite wall to give her privacy to dress.

Normally, she’d’ve laughed at him, but these clothes were hard to get into without looking really foolish while doing it. She settled her breasts into the chest sling and tied its cheap-looking hide thong around her neck. It looked enough like a collar to satisfy.

“I’ll be fine, Kanan,” she assured him. Also again. She looked at the mirror and started winding the faded blue cloth around her lekku in the traditional way. It _itched_ , but fine cloth wouldn’t have fit her persona. 

The slightly rundown casino she’d be visiting tonight owned at least ten Twi’lek women that she had seen in her recon, and she figured she’d fit right in, with the right costume. Luckily the pleasure slaves on Kiddar wore pants. She heard on some of the hotter planets, they barely covered their sensitive bits. “My people are some of the best servants in the galaxy—”

“ _Hera_!” Kanan spun into the room in indignation at her matter-of-fact comment and stopped dead. Hera could only hope it was because she filled out the pleasure-slave suit so well.

Kanan might have been impressed, but he still wasn’t happy. “You becoming some sleemo’s ‘servant’ is exactly the kind of thing I’m worried about.”

She grinned at him sympathetically. He was still feeling his way around this caring for people thing, and it had to be hard for him to see her take what he saw as a risk. She didn’t see it that way at all. “You’ve seen thousands of slaves on dozens of worlds, Kanan,” she reminded him. “When have you ever seen the Empire pay them the least mind?”

He stepped forward, looking at the way the breast slings held her, at the way her flat belly was exposed. “When they look like you do now,” he whispered, concern thick in his voice.

She leaned in to kiss his cheek. “I’ve done this before, you know?” she told him calmly. Her small laser pistol fit perfectly in the holster strapped to her inner thigh, hidden by her billowing silver pants. “I can take care of myself.”

Kanan took a deep breath. His “pushing it away” breath. “Okay.”

She put her hands on his arms. “Do you trust me?”

“I trust _you_ ,” he replied sincerely. “It’s the rest of the planet I don’t trust.”

She chuckled, watching his face soften at the sound. “Tell you what? I’ll be back with the intel in two hours and you’ll have a nice soothing cup of mokla and _real clothes_ waiting for me? Deal?”

He’d wrapped his arms around her for a brief moment and then let her go. 

“Deal.”

Except of course it wasn’t, because Kanan couldn’t stand it and _had_ to follow her. He never would tell her what had happened, but he’d gotten into it with the casino’s guards while Hera was dancing for a few select clients—and just as her Besalisk contact stuck one of her four arms down Hera’s pants, under pretence of _really_ enjoying the show, and deposited the data disk in the holster beside her pistol.

So of course, first there was getting Kanan away from the security guards and then there was running and evading—and all of it in this skrogging _sex suit!_ —and by the time they finally got back to the Ghost, Hera was a little bit furious.

“I _told you_ I could handle this!” she growled, starting to strip off her headwrap. “I told you I’d done this before. That I could get in and out easily, that I _knew what I was doing._ ”

“I know,” he said, sounding contrite. “I’m sorry.”

His eye was swelling nicely from the shiner she’d given him as a distraction to escape the guards. She’d played the ex-girlfriend enraged by her former lover’s spying a little too well, maybe. Served him right, though. 

Hera sighed, looking at the hangdog little boy in front of her. Besides the black eye, he’d taken a hard hit to the ribs and was guarding his stomach with his left arm. He was battered and he was cute, but he had to learn a lesson. “I’m sorry, and…?” she lead.

He knew what he had to do. “I’m sorry _and_ you were right.”

“Yes I was.” She nodded primly, turning back to her drawers and reaching for _real clothes_. She slipped into them with a contented sound and turned back to him. “Now where is my mokla?”

Kanan sputtered. “But, I—I was with you. I just _got here!_ ”

Hera walked past him out the door and toward the galley. Where she _would_ be waited on.

“A deal’s a deal, Kanan.”

*********

**Now, on Lothal**

Hera kept her eyes forward as she heard the cockpit door open and smelled the distinctive scents of both Kanan and mokla. A steaming cup appeared beside her and she took it, leaning back a little and savoring the brew.

“You could have at least let Zeb shoot him,” Kanan remarked, settling into the copilot’s seat. “I can’t believe he put you in that position!”

For a man who’d spent the first week they’d met trying to prove how little he cared about anyone or anything, Kanan was attractively protective. 

“It wasn’t a bad plan, as smugglers go,” she commented. She grinned into her cup. “At least I didn’t have to get into one of those ridiculous get-ups.”

She could _feel_ the indignation coming off of him.

“If we never meet up with Lando Calrissian again, it’ll be too soon,” he growled.

“It’s good to have a smuggler indebted to you, Kanan,” she reminded him. “You never know when we might need him.”

“We don’t need his kind of help.” Kanan’s mokla was getting cold. “What would have happened if something had gone wrong?” he asked. And now he was waving his cup around—he was going to end up with it all over his clothes. “What if you couldn’t get out?”

Hera set her cup on the floor and spun her chair to face his. “What started that fight on Kiddar?”

Kanan’s cup stilled, his face scrunching up in confusion at the abrupt change of topic. “What?”

“The fight on Kiddar? When I was getting the intel from—”

“—that handsy Besalisk,” Kanan finished for her. Finished, and then said nothing more.

Hera smiled. “You were jealous.” That was kind of sweet. He’d sure as suns been jealous of Lando on _this_ mission.

“Jealous?” he sputtered. “No! I just…” It took a long moment before he muttered. “One of the guards might have commented that Besalisk have really long… talented... arms. You know, when the guy stuck his hand down your—”

“ _Her_ hand,” Hera corrected, just to see his cheeks turn rosy. “And what did I tell you then?”

Kanan’s answer was the grumble of a ten-year-old. “You know what you’re doing.”

“Right.” Hera turned back to the skies and started looking for a place to set down. “Now get back there and make sure Ezra and Zeb are actually readying that fuel tank. My baby’s almost dry.”

“Your people probably make horrible servants, Hera,” he muttered. “You’re too bossy.”

The door swished shut.

“That’s what you love about me,” she whispered, a smile on her face.

*********

tbc...


	10. Just in Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place at the end of "Vision of Hope."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is evil and a little cliched, but I'm doing it anyway. Sorry!

Kanan tried to get away as smoothly as he could. Make a crack about a vision of a bratty kid, leave Ezra’s disappointment to Hera to manage. He hoped neither of them noticed, but Kanan needed space. He needed to take his own advice and fall back on his discipline and training. His room seemed like a bad place to contemplate something weighty right now, and Sabine and Zeb had said something about a game in the common room. That left the cockpit, and the airy sunshine outside suited him. It drove away the clouds in his mind.

_“Your emotions clouded the vision.”_

He needed calm. 

_“What was the last vision you had?”_

It was as incomplete as any vision. And only three days old.

_A road so long you could almost see the curve of the planet. Three shooting stars, flying up into the sky instead of plummeting to the ground._

_Ezra:_ **_I’m staying right here._ **

_And then Depa's words in his own voice:_ **_Ezra? I’ll be right behind you._ **

_The red and blue flash of sabers. The feeling of duracrete digging into his knees._

**_Stand up._ ** _Ezra again._ **_Fight back._ **

**_Pain can break anyone._ ** _The glowing darkness of the Inquisitor._

 _And then there_ was _pain…_

If it meant even one of the many things Kanan thought it might, could he trust Ezra to run? Like _he_ had so many years ago? Was he even reading it right, or was he confusing the memory of his master’s death with his worry over his own padawan? Sullying the vision until it wasn’t useful anymore. If it ever had been.

 _“Visions are almost impossible to interpret.”_ Did it mean anything at all?

His contemplation was broken by Hera, returning from her effort to soothe that padawan's heart.

“How’s he doing?” Kanan asked, as she dropped into her chair. 

Her fingers flew over the controls, running a diagnostic. Not because she needed to, he was sure, but because she was unsettled and wasn’t sure what else to do.

“He’s hurt,” she said quietly. “He has nothing of his parents, you know? He really thought Trayvis could be that link.”

Kanan nodded, taking in her own dejected slump. “It’s good you had some Mom time with him, then.”

Hera looked at him incredulously. “Excuse me?”

He chuckled. “Sabine told him we were a family, so he’s decided you’re Mom around here.”

"Making you the dad?" she asked.

Kanan shrugged and tossed out a smile.

Hera snorted. “When do you think he's going to figure out that that makes Sabine his sister?” 

“Not soon enough for her, I’m sure,” he replied.

It was good to see Hera grin. He hated to ruin it.

“I’ve been thinking about something for a while,” he began. "I guess all of this with Gall Trayvis brought it up for me again." Cautiously. Leaning back in his seat as if he was just shooting the breeze. “If you had to, would you leave one of us in an op?”

Hera stared at him hard, anyway. _So much for subtlety, Kanan._

“What’s going on?”

Kanan poured as much sincerity into his words as he could. _To tell a lie, it must contain the truth_. He looked out at the field before them. Ezra was sitting in the grass, his shoulders drawn down in sadness. 

“Ezra really is starting to get the idea of family here. Maybe not the family he used to have, but he takes risks for us I don’t think he’d ever take for himself.”

“So do you,” Hera put in, a dram of panic in her tone. “So do I—all of us do.” She followed his gaze. “Is this about Ezra’s vision?”

 _About_ a _vision, yes._

“He was willing to commit everything he had—everything we all had—to this one. Hopefully he’s learned his lesson. Maybe he won’t be so quick to overcommit to the next one, but…” He looked over at her and saw worry in her eyes. “Ezra or you or me or any of us, Hera. One day, one of us could get us all in over our heads.”

“Then we’ll get out together, Kanan,” she barked. Hera didn’t want to hear it. He hadn’t thought she would, but it was the first step. It opened the door to her thinking differently. Just in case.

 _I’m staying right here._ Ezra was better than Kanan himself had ever been. He’d stay. To the end.

“You know that’s always my plan,” he said quickly, lightening his tone. “And it’s not like I think it’s going to happen. I’m probably being pessimistic, _again_. I’m just saying that I don’t know that I’d ever want him—or you—to sacrifice the whole family just for me.”

“You know we would, Kanan,” she said seriously, ignoring his tone and focusing on the words. She stood, the anger feeding her. “I know we’re all disappointed and we all feel betrayed, but that’s no reason to start thinking the worst.”

He let her have her misconception. “You’re right,” he agreed. “Maybe I’m just feeling a little hopeless.”

“Well, stop it,” she snipped. Her hand dropped onto his shoulder and squeezed. “Take hope in _us_ , okay? This family will stay together, Kanan.”

Kanan nodded.

_Until it couldn’t._

*********

tbc....


	11. The Pause in Hostilities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place between "Call to Action" and "Rebel Resolve."

Hera was… enraged. 

Sabine was right there with her, of course, but she didn’t think she’d ever seen Hera angry like this before.

Though there’d never been Kallus before. There’d never been the Inquisitor before. There’d never been the Jedi thing before. Not really.

Until Ezra came along, Kanan had pretty much kept that to himself. She always kind of wondered if he was afraid of it, beyond the handy moving things with his mind trick. The force itself had cost the lives of literally thousands of Jedi, after all. He’d been lucky to survive.

But the two of them _were_ making things better. Their partnership was allowing the team to take on targets they might not have attempted when it was just the four of them.

 _And now it’s a different four of us_ , she thought morosely. And more than any number of them, they were family, and for Sabine, there was nothing more important.

“Sabine, I want you and Chopper and Ezra scouring _everything_ you can get your hands on. I want to know where they took him and what they’re doing with him.” Hera’s eyes blazed. “We are getting him back. This—” her voice broke, so briefly it was almost unnoticeable—“family stays together.”

“Then why’d you leave him?” Ezra murmured. He hadn’t really said anything since they’d shot away from the tower, beyond setting up for and giving the broadcast. Sabine should have known this was coming. Still, she could have kicked him as she saw Hera’s jaw muscles jump and her fists tighten. 

“We were taking fire, Ezra,” Sabine tried to explain—to spare Hera from having to defend herself. “It wouldn’t have done him any good for us to get blasted out of the sky.”

Ezra jumped to his feet, all the inactivity of the last few hours suddenly turning on him. He vibrated. “So we abandon him like you guys dumped me on that star destroyer when we first met?”

“We are _not_ abandoning him,” Sabine said, her hand reaching out to grab Ezra’s arm, but he threw her off and fled the room.

“We know, Hera,” Zeb said quietly. “We know. And we’ll get him back.”

Sabine was surprised to see the anger in Hera’s stance grow instead of lessen. “Yes we will,” she agreed. “It’s what we do.” She took a shallow breath, all she seemed to be able to get into herself at the moment. “Sabine, I need that intel.”

Sabine nodded, but didn’t have a chance to answer before Hera took off as well.

“Damn kid,” Zeb growled. “Why’d he have to say that? Like Hera weren’t feeling bad enough already.”

“I heard him with Kanan after we first discussed the plan,” Sabine said quietly, understanding Ezra’s fear pretty easily. “He said he’d already lost his parents to freedom fighting. He didn’t want to lose us, too.”

Zeb leaned forward. “Then let’s find Kanan and make sure he doesn’t.”

Which turned out to be easier said than done. With the destruction of the tower, not much was coming through on the airwaves. She tried to tap into the lower frequency databursts the local nets used, but there was nothing useful.

And then it had been an hour, and Ezra hadn’t returned. And Sabine was starting to get worried. If he went off and did something stupid and got captured, too…

“He’s parked himself in the rocks to the south,” Zeb announced after she’d sent him looking. “Figure he needs a little time.”

Time wasn’t something they were going to have here. Sabine sighed.

They were going to have to tap into the Imperial grid directly. They just couldn’t get the information any other way.

“Keep looking Chopper,” she told the droid. “I’ll talk to Hera.”

Sabine opened the cockpit door and took a second to survey the room. Hera sat in Kanan’s seat, every line of her body screaming anger. A broken mokla mug lay under her chair, the puddle of liquid saying the damage was recent.

“Hera?” Her question asked for more than just attention.

“He doesn’t know anything,” Hera whispered. 

“About Fulcrum?” Sabine guessed. She’d thought Kanan knew everything about their operations. 

“About anything. He never has. He didn’t want to risk the rest of us if he was ever captured.” Her teeth ground together and her voice grew louder and rougher with every word. “He told me he didn’t want to sacrifice the whole family just for him!”

“We’ll find him, Hera.” They had to. There was no other choice.

“He _told_ me to leave him,” Hera ground on. “After Trayvis. After Ezra’s vision.” She slammed a fist down on the chair in frustration. “He _knew_ this was going to happen and he _made me leave him!_ ” 

He knew it was going to happen? No. She had to be wrong.

Hera collapsed against the back of the chair, fighting tears in her voice though her eyes seemed clear. “He made me leave him to…”

 _Die_. The thought sent a shock through Sabine’s system. Her own discussion with Hera on the old Clone base suddenly made more sense. _“Kanan… he knows what he’s doing.”_

Sabine knew how the Empire worked, too. They’d interrogate him for as long as it took to convince themselves he really did know nothing, and then they’d cease to have use for him. Might take a little longer for them to decide that with a Jedi, but they’d figure it out soon enough.

If he actually knew something, he wouldn’t last a whole lot longer, but the Empire would have the Ghost and Fulcrum and as much of the rebellion as he carried in his head.

 _“It’s for the safety of the whole crew.”_ Except Kanan. He’d probably figured that death by ignorance was quicker and safer for all of them.

Unless they turned him over to the Inquisitor. Sabine couldn’t even imagine what would happen to him then. He’d likely be just as dead, but it might take a whole lot longer.

“We won’t let that happen, Hera.”

The quiet voice startled her, and Sabine spun around to find Ezra standing behind her, looking sad and apologetic. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, eyes on Hera. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“I know.” Hera stopped him quickly. Sabine had to wonder if it was so that she wouldn’t have to hear his absolution. Sabine knew from experience that it meant nothing.

“We need to tap into the Imperial networks directly,” she cut in instead. Because what _did_ mean something was results. “It’s the only way to know what they’ve done with him.”

“I’ve been itching to cut down some of those walkers they’ve got patrolling,” Zeb growled from the hallway. Small ship and big ears. “Figure they got data ports in them, don’t they?”

Hera took a deeper breath than Sabine had seen from her today. “Sounds like a good idea.” She looked up at Ezra, a smile of thanks for his understanding. “Find out where he is.” 

She slid into her own seat and got started firing up the engines. “Figure out how to get him back so I can kill him myself.”

Sabine didn’t think anyone was going to make Hera wait in line.

*******

Oh, Hera was going to kill him.

Kanan’s head was still ringing. He’d decided to be less than cooperative when the stormtroopers went to put him in the interrogation cell, but a few really hard knocks with those rifles had been enough to do the job. It had been a useless fight, but Kanan was just feeling crotchety today.

As soon as he’d seen the three troop transports flying in, their contrails making them look like shooting stars trying to claw their way back into space, he’d known this all had something to do with his vision.

He could stand to have fewer visions. He’d only had four in his life, but none of them had been great.

And now he’d lied to Ezra and manipulated Hera into leaving him and got himself captured by the regional governor of all people! His standing policy to remain ignorant would probably up the pain side of things, but at least he wouldn’t have to work so hard on resisting the mind probes they’d surely subject him to. 

He’d save that energy for the Inquisitor. 

The crew was probably planning a rescue, because as much as that talk in the cockpit had pursuaded Hera to leave him at the tower, he wasn’t stupid enough to think she’d write him off entirely. But he was on the star destroyer already—far faster than he’d expected to be—which meant they could pretty much take him anywhere. 

Rescue probably wasn’t coming, not that his family wouldn’t try.

_“This family stays together.”_

Yup. Hera was going to kill him.

The door to his cell slammed open, showing him two of his very favorite Imperials. Maybe they’d kill him first.

“Now we will discover if you are indeed the Jedi you claim to be.” Tarkin was as pompous in person as he was on the holonet.

“Well governor,” Kanan greeted him, his head finally starting to clear. “Somebody’s got to keep you entertained.”

And he would. For as long as he could.

Because Hera Syndulla always knew what she was doing. He just had to give her time to do it.

*********** 

tbc….


	12. Simultaneous Engagement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Rebel Resolve" and "Fire Across the Galaxy" are just too juicy and too full to simply do a scene between eps treatment. This story takes place during both episodes and contains novelized scenes from each as well as my usual fare.

**Alderaan** **  
****The private office of Senator Bail Organa**

“Senator?” 

Bail turned to see Ritton, his personal attache. The young man’s face was tight. Worried.

“Yes, Ritton?” They were alone, and the room shielded. No one would know what was said here beyond the two of them.

“The senate has received a military update from the governor of the Outer Rim.” Ritton handed it over and Bail sighed. The face of Kanan Jarrus stared back at him. Captured in the take over of the Lothal communications tower yesterday. Bail had wondered why the young boy, Bridger, had made the broadcast. 

There’d been no Master Jedi there to do the job of inspiration.

“Leave me,” he said quietly. “I have a call to make.”

Once Ritton was gone, Bail double-sealed the room. It took precious moments, but he soon had Ahsoka on his holodesk.

“Kanan Jarrus—” he began.

“I know,” said Ahsoka. 

Bail looked out at his world. His people. As free as an Imperial world could be, but only because of Bail’s power. Lothal had no such privilege and its people had no hope. Until Hera Syndulla and Kanan Jarrus had begun to build it, skirmish by skirmish, blow by blow. With Jarrus gone…

“Tell Captain Syndulla to go into hiding. She cannot attempt a rescue.”

Ahsoka paused. “Senator?” The question was thick with reproach, but Bail would not see these fighters gunned down in an attempt to save a man who couldn’t be saved.

“If Jarrus is still alive, he is in Tarkin’s hands,” he explained. “We both know that Tarkin’s connection to the Emperor—to the evil that destroyed the Jedi in the first place—will ensure the man’s death.” He looked into the hologram, feeling the woman’s pain clearly. “The Empire blew up its own tower rather than let them have their voice. They won’t stop there.”

“Unrest is already popping up on a dozen worlds,” Ahsoka pointed out. “Their message is being rebroadcast from a dozen more.”

Bail nodded sadly, knowing that if Hera went after Jarrus, she likely wouldn’t live to see the fruits of her labor. “They have given the people of the Outer Rim hope, Ahsoka.” 

“Yes, they have, Senator,” Ahsoka began, pleading her case. “And going into hiding will not feed it.”

Neither would tipping their hand before they were ready to strike. “When they sent out their broadcast, they put the entire rebellion at risk,” he reminded her, trying to return to the mission. The mission that was so much bigger than they were. “We must stay hidden.”

“Maybe we’ve been hiding for too long.”

Bail closed his eyes. “Every spy, every agent, every fighter in this rebellion knows the risks of capture, Ahsoka. Until we are stronger, we _must_ be careful.”

Ahsoka stared at the hologram before her, trying to formulate an answer. Careful had gotten them this far, it was true. And perhaps careful would get them a little farther. But at some point, the rebellion would need to make a statement. At some point, they’d have to get the people on their side. That was exactly what Ezra Bridger had done—and he’d scared the Empire doing it. That Tarkin needed to make such a public statement about Kanan’s capture was proof of that.

“Ahsoka, this fight is larger than one cell.” Bail didn’t sound happy, but he did sound determined. Even to save a young padawan she fondly remembered, Ahsoka couldn’t go against him on this. Every step each of them took right now was simply too important. “You know this is the right decision.”

She straightened unconsciously, fighting her urge to speak. Anakin used to liken that stance to a Jilbok, denied the chase by its master’s leash and showing its disapproval the only way it could. “I know, Senator,” she agreed. Because it _was_ the right decision—unless it turned out not to be. The future was after now and therefore unknowable.

“Thank you,” Bail responded. “I will pass on all information the senate receives on this matter.”

The hologram switched off and Ahsoka stood looking at nothing for a second.

“And I’ll figure out how to convince Hera to let him go.”

She wasn’t foolish enough to think it would be easy. But Hera Syndulla was a leader. A good one. And she cared for _all_ of her people. Maybe, if Ahsoka appealed to Hera’s concern for the rest of her crew…?

Kanan would want them to go on. Even if it was without him.

 _I do not_ like _this job sometimes,_ she thought, signalling Hera’s Fulcrum receiver. _Perhaps someday, I’ll get to see if it’s worth it._

**********

Hera sat and shook as the hologram’s glow receded. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t give up Kanan. Not now. Not _ever_.

When she’d left Ryloth, she’d sworn to herself that she’d do everything she could to put down the Empire. She’d sacrifice anything. She’d been more like her father than she wanted to admit, back then. Now, though?

She couldn’t do _this._

_“Kanan knew the risks.”_

Of course Kanan knew the risks! They _all_ knew the risks. It didn’t mean…

_“I’m just saying that I don’t know that I’d ever want him—or you—to sacrifice the whole family just for me.”_

“Damn it, Kanan,” she whispered. How could he do this to her? How could she let him do it by walking away?

Because he wanted her to. Because he’d rather die than see someone die in his stead. He’d already proven it to her long ago.

Hilotti Prime, three years ago. He and Zeb were liberating a factory that had been using slave labor to produce Imperial circuits. Most of the slaves were at least young adults, but too many of them were children. He’d jumped in front of a laser blast for one of them, without hesitation. 

“All life needs protecting. A kid’s worth it, Hera. Any kid.”

Any kid. If any kid was worth it, how much more was Ezra worth?

_“The Empire has tools.... If I was ever captured, any information I had could be theirs.”_

_“Are you saying a Jedi would break?”_

_“More than one has.”_

Hera closed her eyes, felt the moisture overflow and trail down her face. If they got Kanan to talk, their first order of business would be finding out all they could about Ezra. He was the future—in so many ways. And… He had to be protected. 

At all costs.

“I’m sorry, love,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

**********

_“He sacrificed himself.”_

Hera’s words rang in Ezra’s mind, endlessly. He had a plan and now, after running into Chopper in Kanan’s room, he had a partner, but he needed to think it all through. None of them would be surprised to see that he’d fled the ship, so he did. He stayed in the rocks nearby and he paced and he planned.

She thought Kanan was dead. They _all_ thought he was dead. Ezra stopped moving for a moment, closed his eyes, breathed deep, and felt… something. Distant and clouded, but something.

It was Kanan. It had to be him. He wasn’t just gone!

_“Ezra? I’ll be right behind you.”_

Kanan had lied to him. Just… bald-faced lied. He had known there was no way for them to survive waiting for Hera unless someone stayed behind to delay the Empire. And rather than let Ezra stay by his side, he’d sent him away.

How could he _do_ that?

 _There will be loss and sacrifice._ Yeah, there would. Some other time. Not right now and _not_ Kanan.

He was going to bring his master home.

“Hey.” 

Ezra whirled around and found Sabine leaning against a rock, watching him.

“I don’t care what you all think,” he bit out, anger rising and eclipsing his resolve. “Kanan isn’t dead. And I’m going to get him back.”

Sabine sighed. “I want to believe that, Ezra, I _do_.” Her voice got very quiet. “You don’t know how much.”

“So why didn’t you fight Hera when—”

“Because Hera is hurting enough already!” she scolded. “She and Kanan have been together for longer than any of us. I’m not sure she even knows what life might be like without him—”

“Then how—”

“Because she has to. Because he’d want her to.” Sabine closed her eyes. “Because he asked her to.”

Ezra just stared. Kanan had asked…?

“Well, he didn’t ask me,” he replied staunchly. “And he can do whatever he wants when he gets back, but I’m not leaving him up there.”

“ _Up_ there?” Sabine’s voice was very still. “What do you mean _up there_?”

Ezra closed his eyes again, the feeling he kept feeling taking up all his senses. It was cold and tingly and acidy; black and metal and wasted and… And under it all was Kanan. Above him.

“I can’t explain it,” he whispered. “I just know he’s alive and he’s not on Lothal.”

Sabine seemed to consider that for a moment. When she spoke, it was with a sense of purpose Ezra had thought the last few days had beaten out of all of them.

“How can I help?”

************

**_Where are you, Caleb?_ **

Kanan Jarrus smiled only in his mind. **_Here and there, Master. Here and there._ **

“Raise the level to interrogation three,” Kallus commanded. Sounded frustrated, poor guy.

The practice of being both here and there, what the Jedi called simultaneous engagement, was one that Master Billaba took pains to teach him. It was a simple concept, really. Sometimes, you needed to be completely present in the here and now but also needed very detailed information you’d gleaned in the past. 

Caleb hadn’t always been good at it, but his master had never stopped trying to teach him. 

In the here and now, Kanan’s head was killing him. The interrogation droid had been pumping him full of drugs at intervals so that Kallus could ask him questions he didn’t know the answer to and wouldn’t have answered if he had. Here wasn’t a place he _wanted_ to be, but he had to stay present or risk something getting past his defenses.

In the past he was experiencing clearly, he was learning about interrogation techniques from Master Kenobi. The room held a dozen padawans and Caleb was the youngest by far. He tried not to let it bother him. He had just been granted the right to be Master Billaba’s padawan and was learning what was needed before he could go with her out into the field to fight. 

“What can you tell me about interrogation serums?” Master Kenobi asked.

A pretty young Mirialan girl spoke up. She’d been pretty but really uptight, Kanan remembered thinking.

“The serums are organic compounds,” she stated primly. 

“And?” Master Kenobi asked.

A much older human padawan answered. “And as such, the body can be taught to break them down more quickly than an enemy might expect.”

Or a bartender. Kanan wasn’t great at Here and There, but he could keep himself drunk for a week on a single bottle of Plalalp or sober up from a bender in an instant. 

“Where is your ship’s base?” Kallus asked.

If they really thought _this_ was going to get him to talk, they were mistaken.

“Correct,” Master Kenobi continued. “With practice, a Jedi may control his physical condition to a remarkable degree. It is important to learn how to raise and lower one’s metabolism, to slow and speed one’s heartbeat. In rare cases, one may even increase one’s rate of healing.”

 _I could use that one right now,_ Kanan thought to himself. He’d taken a good beating that first day and his head still really hurt. As a result, he wasn’t giving the drugs the attention they deserved. Metabolizing them quickly was exhausting and he was certain he’d need his strength later, when Tarkin tired of Kallus’s failure and turned the Inquisitor loose on him.

“Can a Jedi be poisoned?” Caleb asked. He was always asking something when he was a kid. Like Ezra.

“Anyone may succumb to poisons, Caleb,” Master Kenobi said with a smile. “It just depends on how much they give you and how quickly you can purge it from your system.”

By his count it had been three days since he was captured, but he wasn’t sure if that was accurate. Again: drugs, exhausting, not really paying too much attention...

“This is giving me no information at all,” Tarkin snapped. “Are you certain this droid can get what we want?”

Kanan was entirely certain it wouldn’t get them anything but him snoring at them eventually. He was losing steam, and it was starting to worry him. He needed to save some strength for the main event.

“Interrogation techniques often involve a combination of sensory perversion, drugs, and pain,” Master Kenobi was saying. “You will learn how to deal with each of these so that, if you are captured and interrogated, you may rise above what is happening to ensure that you do not provide the enemy with information.”

Or satisfaction. 

“I will not wait much longer, Agent Kallus,” Tarkin grated. “I want his information on the rebellion _now_.”

Kanan was just continuing to disappoint, wasn’t he?

And the _Ghost_ had never come.

 _That_ should have worried him, but it didn’t. If she’d come after him and failed, two things would have happened: Tarkin would have explained his triumph in exhaustive detail, and Kanan would have felt his family die. At least Ezra. Probably Hera, too, at this point. No, they were alive and they were not here and enough time had passed that he really believed they weren’t coming.

And he was glad Hera had somehow made that choice. It was a choice he hadn’t expected her to be able to make, but it made all he was going through easier. At least she and the kids wouldn’t pay for his trouble.

Mom and the kids. Again, he smiled only in his mind.

***********

Hera kept the _Ghost_ steady with the greatest of difficulty when what she really wanted to do was dive down onto the smuggler’s camp with lasers blazing. She could not _believe_ that boy could…! _OH!_

“I understand, Hera,” Ezra had said to her, when he’d finally come back to the ship five hours after storming out. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to attack you like that. I just… I miss him.”

She missed him, too. More than any of them knew! She wasn’t normally one to be jealous, but she was jealous of them all now. _They_ got to simply miss him. She had to carry on their work.

Ezra had said all the right things, of course. He probably even believed them—didn’t the Weequay say that lies were easier to speak if truth was on your tongue? And then he’d taken the _Phantom_ and gone to see _Vizago_ , of all people! And of course he’d gotten Sabine and Zeb to go with him. Everyone had been in on it.

She was supposed to be keeping the crew safe and instead they were trying to tear everything apart! Kanan had died—

Hera put a hand to her mouth in shock. She’d thought it. Right out there in the open. Not a euphemism, not a gentle allusion to a painful truth.

And it sounded _wrong_. Profoundly wrong. Not “I wish it weren’t so” wrong, but… 

It came to her in a flash that somewhere out there, Kanan was alive. The sudden overwhelming certainty of that thought made her whole promise to Fulcrum seem like an abomination. The _Empire_ threw lives away. The rebellion was supposed to be different.

But Ezra was putting _all_ of them in danger—even Kanan—and that could not go unanswered. All Vizago had to do was call the Empire and suggest a trade: Her crew for… anything he wanted. She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, and his business had to be hurting with the blockade. Money was all he cared about, and Ezra should have seen how dangerous that made the Devaronian. 

She flew faster. 

************

Pain. _That_ was the thing Kanan had never been good with. Purge chemicals from his body? Sure. Survive pretty much as long as you’d like in all manners of sensory bending environments? He was your Jedi. But pain?

Pain fragmented you. It tore your soul apart, ripped pieces off of you. Eventually, _any_ being would beg for mercy with the application of enough pain.

_“Feel yourself rise above.”_

Depa had been a hazy image as Caleb had been evacuated from the Battle of Kardoa. His wounds had been excruciating and he couldn’t seem to get enough air. He had panicked, and she had soothed him.

_“Feel yourself rise above.”_

Eventually he’d just passed out again. He never did rise above.

_“Shout if you want to. Nobody gonna hear you and it kinda short out that sense of being shot.”_

Kanan chuckled involuntarily as the Inquisitor stopped the electrodes’ attack. Watinta. _That_ had been an adventure.

Watinta was an Anzat, and a pirate of sorts. Not a very good one, but he tried. He was, however, very good to a newly invented young man called Kanan. 

Kanan had arrived on Yunia just shy of his seventeenth birthday, hungry, tired, and looking for work. Watinta needed a thief and in the years since Kaller, Kanan had become a good one. Unfortunately the security detail at the house they robbed was better, and he’d been shot in the leg in their escape.

Back on Watinta’s ship, Kanan had tried every technique to rise above the pain, but there was no bacta, no liquor, and the bullet from the ancient projectile weapon had lodged next to the nerve bundle that ran close to the bone. Watinta had made for the nearest safe planet, but in the meantime, he’d given Kanan that advice.

_“Shout if you want to.”_

“Where are your friends, Kanan Jarrus?” The Inquisitor asked. Smooth and persuasive and dark and terrifying. Kanan had been dismayed to find that the interrogator droid had taken enough out of him to make resisting the Inquisitor’s opening gambit—a hard thrust into his mind, looking for information—harder than it should have been. He’d recovered himself in time, but he hadn’t said another word since, for fear of saying the wrong one.

“Sorry,” Kanan gasped, surprised to find his voice this time. “Figure if they’re not blowing this place up, they’re long gone.”

The Inquisitor smiled. “With your padawan?” he purred. “I highly doubt it.”

Kanan concentrated on breathing, on recovery. He couldn’t think about Ezra or Hera or Sabine or Zeb or Chopper. They were gone. They were safe.

He was damned if he couldn’t keep them that way.

The Inquisitor sighed, and Kanan knew that was all the break he was going to get. “Very well, Jedi. But this grows tiresome.”

 _You’re telling_ **_me_** _?_ Lightning roared through his body, the yellow eyes of the Inquisitor boring into him.

_“Shout if you want to.”_

So Kanan did.

*********

“I don’t like this, Sabine.” 

Sabine turned back to Zeb from where she’d been staring, boring a hole in the shipping container Vizago used as an office. “No arguments here.” She sighed. “What would Vizago ask of a Jedi?”

“I don’t know, but—”

“And how would Vizago _know_ Ezra was a Jedi?” Hera’s voice froze Sabine’s blood and she turned to face her. Hera was seething. Chopper must have caved almost immediately for her to get here this quickly.

Zeb looked sheepish as only Zeb could. “Ezra sort of… told him.”

“He WHAT!?”

Sabine tried to smooth ruffled feathers. A total fool’s errand, but she had to try. “Vizago knew something—you could see it. Ezra… did what he thought he had to do.”

“No,” Hera grated. “Ezra didn’t think at all,” she growled. Sabine had never heard her growl. “He gave information to a being who _trades_ in information, Sabine. Trades to anyone—to the Empire! Do you understand how dangerous that is?!”

“I’m beginning to,” Sabine muttered.

So of course, Ezra picked that moment to appear.

To say that the next five minutes were unpleasant would have been a huge understatement. Sabine and Zeb kept their mouths shut while Ezra got reamed. And then Ezra said something very like what Sabine had heard Kanan say to him when she’d been watching the two of them in the cargo hold, before everything went to hell.

“That’s why I took this risk.”

Hera calmed down and listened and suddenly…

There was hope.

***********

_“EXECUTE THE JEDI!”_

_“Run or fight, but do not just stand there!”_

The endless flashing of two blue lightsabers against a sea of traitors stopped abruptly and Kanan collapsed forward, caught against the restraints of the interrogation table. The electrodes and their lightning were gone for the moment, but they still left burning along every nerve.

“Is it possible he does not _know_ of any other rebels to speak of?”

 _Been trying to tell you that for days._ Kanan had no illusions that he could get those words out. Didn’t mean they didn’t need saying.

How many days it had been, he had no idea, but he did know his body was going to give out at some point. He just hoped his mind could outlast it.

But then Tarkin said a word that had his cramping, painful guts tightening further. He wondered if he could get them to kill him before they got there.

His mind would never outlast Mustafar…

Kanan was twenty years old before he saw another Jedi. By that time, he was beyond wanting to rehash old times. He’d been tending a cantina and building ships on Edowar for more than a month when he saw him. It was a literal case of “A guy walks into a bar.”

Men in robes were not an unusual occurrence on Edowar, but ones who oozed the Force the way this guy did? Kanan didn’t see that every day. He’d turned his back on the Force so completely at that point that the man was like an alien being. Hard to understand because Kanan no longer had the key to decipher what he was feeling from him. He remembered wondering if he even had enough of a connection to the Force left to register for the Jedi before him. 

“A plalalp,” the man said. 

Apparently not, as he was soundly ignored, beyond the drink order. Kanan had thought the Jedi was human at first, but he realized, looking at him full on, that he was Mirialan. His facial markings were dense. He was probably old—but with Mirialans it was hard to tell.

Kanan handed him his drink and watched him walk to a table in the back, waiting for someone without waiting. A Jedi trick to make those around you forget you were there.

So Kanan blocked him without blocking him and watched without watching. After ten more minutes, a Twi’lek woman entered and went to the table. Kanan should have ignored them but instead, he wiped down a table near enough to listen and dirty enough for the task to take some time.

“I am sorry, Master Tialan,” the Twi’lek said, head bowed. “I have heard no word.”

Tialan’s voice was rocky and sad. “I came to tell you I have found him but there will be no rescue,” he said, in that formal style his people favored. “He has been taken to Mustafar.”

The Twi’lek woman was confused. “I do not know this place.”

Kanan didn't either.

“It is said that it is the lair of the Sith, and I well believe it,” Tialan explained. “He is not the first to be brought there. I have never seen a rescue attempt succeed.” He paused and Kanan risked a look over. Tialan was scared. A rare sight in a Master. “All those who survived the great purge are brought before the Sith lord there. Tortured. They surrender to the Dark Side, or they perish.”

Which to Kanan amounted to the same thing. It would be four more years before he heard about the Inquisitor. A single Force-wielder, turned to the Dark Side by the Sith Lord, whose job it was to hunt down the last of the Jedi—he'd heard it had been a human, though, so maybe it was the Inquisitor before the Pau'an who was causing him so much trouble now. Kanan had been lucky to stay under the radar, but he remembered wondering if that being he’d heard about on Kito, intent on turning or destroying any Force-sensitive he met, had once been a padawan like him.

He opened his eyes to wonder that about the Pau’an as well, and found his cell empty.

Apparently he’d forgotten to keep track of here, while he was there.

*********

“Governor Tarkin!”

Tarkin looked up from his datapad. A young lieutenant rushed into his outer office and saluted. 

“Yes?”

“Sir, our communications ship was compromised.” The lieutenant gulped at Tarkin’s stare. “We believe it may have been the rebels from Lothal.”

An idiot. A complete and utter idiot. 

“One would think that likely, Lieutenant, as we are in orbit over said planet, and only a rebel would attack us.” He flicked his hand and the irritant ran off.

“They were trying to find him,” the Inquisitor murmured. “Perhaps his padawan sensed his location.” Mystics! This _Grand_ Inquisitor was as bad as Lord Vader in his own way. 

Tarkin rose. “Well they’ll hardly have the chance to mount a heroic rescue.” He keyed open a comm link to the bridge. “General? Prepare to leave for Mustafar as soon as possible.” 

“Yes, sir!”

The Inquisitor seemed… even more introspective than usual. Tarkin had no time for it. “Is there something you wish to discuss?”

“Kanan Jarrus,” the Pau’an said.

“I believe he will be more difficult to break than you first assumed. Even with the powers of your Force.”

“He was a child when the Jedi were destroyed,” The Inquisitor continued. “Did you know?”

“He appears young,” Tarkin allowed. Where _was_ the man going with this?

“I wonder… did his Master shield him, as he is so obviously trying to shield his own padawan?” His eyes lit with a dangerous fire. “I wonder how much her death keeps him up at night.”

Tarkin clicked his tongue. “I do not _care_ how much. I want the identity of Fulcrum and the location of the main rebel base in the Outer Rim.” He rose. “I assumed that that information would be easy to obtain for one of your… talents.” He turned away, watching the smaller ships around them make way for the Star Destroyer’s jump into hyperspace. “You have time before we reach Mustafar,” he said quietly. “Perhaps you might finish your work before we arrive and present Lord Vader with our triumph.”

“I believe I shall delve into the Battle of Kaller before I do.” The Inquisitor smiled, his mouth full of sharp teeth something horrible to look at. “I am sure our Jedi would love to reminisce on old times.”

Tarkin wasn’t interested in a history lesson. He let the fanatic leave and hoped that he would manage to salvage something from the Jedi.

If not, Tarkin would make certain that the Emperor knew it was the Pau’an’s failing, and not his.

*********

Every minute seemed too long.

Ezra tried to calm down—he even tried meditating. But there were too many things to do before they could leave and it wore on every nerve he had.

And he couldn’t feel that something that had Kanan in the middle of it anymore. As they _finally_ made the jump into hyperspace, he could only hope that the distance was the problem…

**********

The world was coming undone. The planet below them seethed with the Dark Side—it poisoned the space around it, pushing in on a man who was far too compromised to withstand the pressure.

Too many days of fighting—drugs and pain and questions and memories. Too many worries. Were Hera and the others all right? Had they been caught? Killed? He doubted that last one, but he could hardly reach back to Lothal to feel for Ezra’s presence. Sometimes on the same planet, he couldn’t feel him clearly—not like it had been between him and Master Billaba. The Force was something only half open to him now. It was what made him such a very bad Master himself.

_“See you I can. Before, I could not. Changed, something has.”_

Not enough, though. Not nearly enough. The evil they circled would come for him eventually.

He hoped Ezra would do well now, without him. The boy knew as much now as Caleb had known when Depa died. 

_Yeah… Look how you turned out._

Shaking off the maudlin thought, Kanan tried to marshall his strength. Tried to borrow some of Ezra’s optimism, if only remotely. Live free a little longer. Physically, he felt stronger than he had just hours ago. He wasn’t dead yet, and—

The door shot open—

And neither was the Inquisitor. 

The Jedi hunter stepped into the room and Kanan realized that even those hours they’d left him alone weren’t nearly enough to help him cope with this. The darkness was simply too powerful and it terrified him.

“It appears your band of rebels were all set to mount a daring rescue for you,” the Pau’an exclaimed. “Of course, that would be difficult when we are here and they are there, wouldn’t it?”

What balance he’d regained fled. He’d told Hera not to look for him. He really thought she listened. 

“Let us begin again, then, shall we?” the Inquisitor asked. “Who is your contact in the larger rebellion?”

Okay, familiar ground. “I know nothing of a larger rebellion.”

“Alas, still not the answer we were looking for.”

Kanan found the energy to smile wolfishly, even as the electrodes moved into position. Live free a little longer. “It’s all the answer you’re going to get.”

And there was pain again. With the pain, came the memory of the last time he’d been truly undone...

 _He’d been happy, on the battlefield, with his unit. His friends. Until his master had said she disagreed with the Council. The Jedi should not,_ could not _be military leaders, she thought._

_Caleb had thought it was just shy of blasphemy and said so._

_“I seem to recall that_ **_you_ ** _were somewhat famous—if not infamous—for asking too many questions.” Depa said it with all the exasperated love of a Master to her Padawan, but Caleb still bristled._

 _“I asked questions to better understand_ why _a decision was made. I never questioned the decisions themselves.”_

_Master Billaba sighed. “Perhaps I was being glib,” she apologized. “Perhaps that’s not the most attractive quality in a Jedi Master. The truth is, your questioning nature is precisely what led me to choose you as my padawan.”_

The lightning paused and Kanan sucked in a breath. He couldn’t help feeling like the beginning of the end that he was remembering signalled the beginning of the end here and now.

“Who is your contact—” the Inquisitor began. He seemed stressed. Maybe the evil below them was getting to him, too.

“I know nothing of a larger rebellion.”

And the lightning resumed.

_The firelight grew up around it, banishing the lightning for a moment. Friends and comrades and his Master by his side._

_Her hand grabbed his wrist with deadly intensity. “Caleb.”_

The lightning continued and Kanan felt every single bolt. Still not as bad as the memory he couldn’t deny.

_“Caleb Dume,” Master Billaba whispered. And then her voice exploded with fear for him. “RUN!”_

Over the lightning now, as if the Inquisitor couldn’t be bothered to stop it: “Where is your base? Who is—”

“I…” It was hard to breathe. “I know nothing—”

_“Caleb, we cannot win this battle. You must **run**.” _

The lightning died one last time and Kanan sensed a pause. A chance to catch his breath. 

“Still protecting your precious crew,” the Inquisitor purred. Regaining his balance. Rethinking his strategy. 

“Quite admirable.” He advanced, and Kanan couldn’t get distance. Trapped. Strapped to a table, he _couldn’t_ run. “But what I want to know is about the other rebels,” his adversary continued. “Codename: Fulcrum.”

Kanan had caught his breath, if not his own balance. “I know nothing of a larger rebellion,” he repeated, focusing his strength. “And if I did, I’d rather give my life than tell you.” No one was dying for him again. Ever.

“So heroic. Just like your master.”

Kanan breathed.

“Tell me, Jedi, how did you survive Order 66, hmm?”

Breathe.

“It was your master Billaba who laid down her life for yours. Do you remember her last word to you? Her last and final breath before she died?”

The words wormed inside him, every one a knife. A blaster. A flash of pain and betrayal.

_Breathe, Kanan! This is how it starts. This is how you turn…_

“You do, don’t you?” Silky. Seductive. “You see it in your sleep. You hear her voice when you wake.”

_No._

“Tell me, Jedi, what was her last word to you?”

_Don’t. Don’t—_

But the world had come undone. 

“Run.” The word fell from his mouth and he knew he’d lost.

Didn’t stop the Inquisitor from speaking, though. A poison Kanan couldn’t process, the words continued to seep in.

“And does your loyal, precious crew know you ran as your master fell? Abandoned her and the Jedi Order when they needed you most?”

He couldn’t mount a defense. How did you fight it when the other guy was telling the truth?

“What do you think your rebels would do if they knew their leader was a coward? You’re even afraid of your own power.” Kanan didn’t jump when his lightsaber ignited. “You don’t have the courage to wear your full saber out in the open.”

_“You’ll never advance as a Jedi if you can’t be honest—with yourself, at least.”_

“Let me tell you something, Jedi.” The tip of his own saber in his face charged Kanan’s body with adrenaline, but not enough. “You’re right to be afraid. You couldn’t save your master then, and you can’t save your followers now.”

_Not sure I was ever going to be able to do that. Maybe it'll be Ezra’s job._

The Inquisitor said more, but Kanan was beyond listening. The Inquisitor’s master, whose darkness boiled below them, would do what he would do and maybe they’d leave Hera and the crew alone. Maybe she’d already left Lothal.

His mind wandered.

 _“Could a Jedi choose to forsake the path? Just… stop using the Force altogether?” It didn’t seem like something someone would want to do, but he’d always wondered. Surely_ every _Force-sensitive person didn’t become a Jedi. The galaxy would be full of them._

_“It is possible,” Depa confirmed. “But difficult. To stop the Force is to stop an exploding star.”_

_“Could the Force stop an exploding star?” Caleb asked with a grin._

_Billaba laughed. “Perhaps someday you’ll see.”_

He hadn’t seen it yet, but he had certainly proven to himself that the path could be well and truly forsaken. He’d been foolish to ever try to teach Ezra. He just didn’t have the strength. He’d shown that when he was a kid.

_“Open yourself, Caleb Dume,” Billaba urged._

_Caleb looked at the Higga, its large fangs bared as it growled at him._

_“Open myself? To_ that?”

 _“You are connected to all life through the Force. But you must_ choose _to make that connection.”_

********

The transition from hyperspace to the space over Mustafar shocked Ezra for a minute. It was like the heat of the molten surface boiled out into space, but the furnace left him cold. He tried to push it aside, but the feeling fed his anxiety. 

They had to be in time—they had to find him. What if the Inquisitor had killed Kanan en route?

“Ezra?” Hera called, shaking him from his thoughts. 

“Well,” he said fatalistically. “Here goes nothing.”

He took a deep breath. Breath before a _big_ jump in Capital City.

_Kanan?_

_Kanan?_

The planet was just so much blackness and cold. Even the destroyer was cold. He kept looking for a spark.

_Kanan!?_

*********

He’d lied, he realized, as the silence weighed on him. The depression. The desolation. He’d lied about her last words.

_“Go. I’ll be right behind you.”_

She lied, too. Like Master, like padawan.

 _Kanan!?_ Ezra. Memories had clearly given way to dreaming.

He’d never get his chance to apologize. The chance he knew his own master would not have taken, had she lived. She lied to save him, and she would not regret that. Neither would he, but…

_I shouldn’t have lied to you, Ezra._

_You didn’t. It just took a little while._

Kanan’s eyes snapped open in shock as the reality of Ezra’s presence washed over him.

And something changed.

********

Ahsoka sighed, looking at the reports before her. Every day, there were more skirmishes between Outer Rim populations and the Imperial troops who occupied their worlds. 

“Stand up,” Ezra had told them. “Fight back.” And they had.

They had hope.

“I only wish that those who brought you that hope shared it as well,” she murmured, still remembering the look on Hera’s face as she’d terminated her transmission. There’d been no word from them since, but on Lothal, someone had blown up a TIE outpost and stolen a transport.

If they had gone after Kanan, against orders of the rebellion, surely she would have heard about it by now.

As if summoned, Hera’s transmission code flashed on her screen.

“This is Fulcrum.” A series of bleeps in binary greeted her but there was no visual. “Who is this?” 

She set her comm to translate the droid—she’d never learned to speak the language the way Anakin had—and tried again. “I’m sorry, repeat what you said. Where is Hera?”

The story was long and detailed and Ahsoka wasted no time sending out an alert to all the leaders. They needed to move _now_. What had been the right thing just wasn’t anymore. 

An image came to her: a padawan too young for his years and too full of questions. Anakin: “Kind of reminds me of you, Snips.” 

This time, she wasn’t planning to take no for an answer.

***********

Kanan had practically fallen into Ezra’s arms when he’d been released from the interrogation table. They got about two halls over before Ezra stopped to take a breath.

“We can find a place to hide,” he offered.

Kanan shook his head. “No place to hide here, you know that.” He grinned, trying to take more of his own weight. His legs were shaking. “Let’s just get out.”

“As you wish, my Master,” Ezra replied. That line was always good for a laugh or a groan, and it scared him that he got neither. Kanan was on his last legs and they had to get out of here.

Ezra tried to remember the layout Sabine had shown him. The generators should be coming up. They could cut through there. Kanan was just staring at his feet in exhaustion, putting one in front of the other.

And then the door to the power core opened and Ezra’s heart stopped.

The Inquisitor was there, smiling. Like he’d been waiting for them. Ezra stood frozen to the spot, feeling the tremors in the body he was half-carrying. How could they fight him now?

Kanan on the other hand, stilled his muscles, took a deep breath, and stood a little taller. The something Ezra always felt between them strengthened and, miraculously, Kanan stepped away from him and reached across to unhook Ezra’s lightsaber.

“Let me borrow that.”

**********

_“Each time you meet an opponent is the first time,” Master Windu once told them. “No matter how many times you have met on the field of battle.”_

Kanan knew he wasn’t going to win this one through skill and strength. So he’d have to use novelty and cunning instead. And as he and the Inquisitor parried and struck, back and forth along the catwalk, he hoped that would be enough. The hope grew as Ezra made it two on one. 

The Inquisitor only needed to make one mistake. The core went straight through the ship—one wrong step and goodbye.

Flung away by a Force push he should have expected, Kanan hit the catwalk hard and his mind flashed on a nightmare he’d had months ago. After their first meeting with the Inquisitor. 

_Pull it together, Kanan._

The smell of a lightsaber through flesh was a distinctive one, and with all of his physical senses on alert, Kanan smelled it clearly. Ezra’s yelp of pain was loud over the generators around them.

And then Ezra took that one wrong step.

“NO!” Kanan heard the clatter of the landing far too far below, could barely see his padawan’s legs, his view blocked by the catwalk he himself was on.

_“Don’t worry, Caleb! I got your back!” Stance, dying beside him._

_“Caleb, we cannot win this battle.” His master._

_“I won’t lose you to him like I did in my nightmare.”_

**No...** Loss and sacrifice… Pain and betrayal… Words burned in his soul poured into his mind, a calm counterpoint to his anguish.

_Emotion, yet peace…  
_ _Ignorance, yet knowledge….  
_ _Passion, yet serenity…  
_ _Chaos, yet harmony—_

The world stopped. The darkness below retreated. What was undone came together. That was it. The answer to yet another question. The most important question.

_Death, yet the Force._

Kanan took a deep breath and just…

...let go.

The Force flowed as it hadn’t when he took his first life. Anger and sorrow gave way to the light and he saw with a clarity he hadn’t before. There was no fear.

He’d have to thank the Inquisitor for this. If the Pau’an survived the battle.

“That was a mistake,” he said quietly, voice deep with the power that buzzed within. 

And he planned to make use of it.

***********

“ _Please_... Ezra, are you there!?” 

Hera. Scared Hera. 

Ezra put his hand to his cheek, hissing at the pain of it. Lightsabers _hurt,_ but he didn’t seem to be bleeding. Someone was waiting for him.

Hera. Right. He grabbed his commlink, still trying to figure out the world.

“I’m here,” he said. Kind of.

“Do you have Kanan?” she begged, breathless and running, her effort heard clearly over the comms. “Is he okay?”

Ezra looked up to see the battle above, his mind clearing a little bit more. Whatever had happened while Ezra had been out had galvanized Kanan. He’d never seen him fight better. He was amazing! 

“Yeah,” he replied, incredulous. “I think he’s better than okay.”

Hera’s voice betrayed her confusion at the comment. “We’re heading for Bay 5. We’re getting out on the TIE. How long will it take you to get there?”

Ezra had been watching Kanan’s progress as the Jedi drove the Inquisitor back away. Wow. “Shouldn’t take too much longer.”

“What does that mean?” Hera asked, exasperated.

“I’ll let you know,” he told her. 

And then he ran. Out of the core, up two levels, back toward the center. His arm hurt and his hip hurt and his face hurt _a lot_ and he had to get back to help Kanan! He’d just set foot on the catwalk when he saw two bright streaks of red hit a transformer far below and explode. The Inquisitor’s lightsaber. _That couldn’t be good._

And it wasn’t. The entire ship shuddered as the core caught fire and he nearly slipped and landed right back where he’d started. But Kanan was going to need him, so he picked himself up and kept running. Turned out, Kanan didn’t need him at all. 

Halfway across the catwalk, Ezra watched the Inquisitor fall down and down and down. The ship shook once more as the Pau'an's body hit the already burning core. This place was going to explode around them if they didn’t get out.

Ezra fetched up against the control ring near Kanan. Kanan was just staring into the void, which wasn’t going to work, what with the ship blowing itself apart.

“Kanan?” he called, a bizarre echo of the call in his mind that had started this whole thing. “Kanan!?”

Kanan started in shock at his words and nearly went over into the flames below before he caught himself. The look on his face when he turned…

“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered, awed. Something thrummed between them. Something familiar but… different. Stronger. 

“I know the feeling,” Ezra replied, just enjoying the fact they were both alive for the moment. Wasn’t going to be a long moment if they didn’t move. “Let’s go home.”

**************

Going home—at least to the _Ghost_ —took a while, but they got there. Eventually. And eventually, they were able to think about enjoying it. The crew and Fulcrum settled in the common room, all of them spent and half-awake. Kanan felt Ezra peel off from the group and let his padawan have his space. The rest of them were too tired to notice.

Zeb and Sabine were grinning, staring at him openly. Hera was holding his hand. She had been since they met Ahsoka and probably would be for the foreseeable future.

Ahsoka. Kanan hadn’t seen her since that second bombing at the Jedi temple—the one that had forced her out of the order. 

“You should go to the medical frigate once we’ve reached our first hyperspace stop,” she said, gracing him with a familiar smile. “I don’t think you’ll need the bacta tank this time.” She and Master Skywalker had been on Coruscant when he’d emerged from the tank after the Battle of Kardoa.

He hadn’t been sure she’d remember him. He’d been younger than she was. Ahsoka spent most of her time in the field with Master Skywalker, but she’d sparred with most of the younglings when she was on Coruscant. She’d had a lot of useful wisdom to dole out as well, both before he'd been apprenticed to Master Billaba and after. 

Kanan smiled in return, but the exhaustion was just eating at him. “Right now, I’d settle for my bunk.”

“We’ll stay with the fleet for the moment,” Hera decided. Kanan just drank in the sight of her before leaning back and closing his eyes. For a minute. “Give Lothal time to calm down.”

Yeah… Calming down was good…

Ahsoka nodded. “I agree. The Empire has already begun to rebuild their communications relay. Security will be tight there for some time.” She smiled. “And we can always use another excellent pilot.”

Hera grinned at the compliment. “Thank you, Ahsoka,” she said sincerely. She’d put the Togruta woman in a bad position. She’d put the rebellion in a bad position. 

The _Empire_ threw lives away, she remembered thinking, though the thought was less bitter with Kanan’s hand in hers. The rebellion had proven it was different.

“I know this changes things,” she offered lamely.

“Yes. Because things change,” Ahsoka replied evenly. “Sometimes it’s necessary to… stir the pot.”

“Well, Kanan’s always been good at that,” Hera joked, squeezing his hand.

“Kanan’s also asleep,” Zeb pointed out, a bit quieter than his usual voice.

Kanan was. He looked drawn and worn out, his head was back and mouth open. He might even have been drooling a little bit. He was beautiful.

“I believe we should all get some sleep,” Ahsoka suggested.

Sabine stood up and stretched. “Sounds like a great idea. You’re welcome to use Hera’s room, if you’d like, Ahsoka. She can bunk in with Kanan.”

Hera smirked. “Oh, I can, can I?”

Sabine poked Kanan in the shoulder, watching him shift in his sleep. “Yes, you can.” 

Zeb looked down at him. “Want me to throw him over my shoulder and carry him?”

“Pretty sure my stomach muscles couldn’t take that, “ Kanan murmured, opening his eyes slowly. He looked around, smiling as he counted heads. Hera did as well, finding one missing.

“Where’s Ezra?” she asked. Though in hyperspace, there weren’t a lot of places he could go.

Kanan closed his eyes and she figured he was falling back asleep. But after a moment he smiled softly.

“He’s in the nose gun.” Kanan fought to his feet, and Hera had to wonder how many times he should be asked to do that before he was allowed to rest. “I’ll go up and send him to bed.”

No one argued.

“Weird,” Sabine said after he’d left. “I would’ve thought Ezra would stick by Kanan for weeks after this. Just to convince himself he’s all right.”

Ahsoka smiled. “He knows he’s all right,” she said, certainty making it a proclamation. “No matter where he is from now on, he’ll know.”

Hera didn’t know what that meant for a Jedi, but for her boys, she couldn’t be happier.

************

Ezra felt him coming. He didn’t say a word as Kanan climbed slowly up the ramp and stood next to him, sharing the view of hyperspace.

“Hasn’t Hera sent out enough search parties today?” Kanan joked.

Ezra grinned. “We’re in hyperspace—what kind of trouble could I get into?”

“You don’t really want me to answer that, do you?”

“Is this what it was like… with your master?” Ezra knew his question stopped Kanan in his tracks, but he had to know. The words between them above Mustafar had been the only ones, but the something between them was still different and clean and strong now. Better.

“Yeah.” Kanan was quiet for a long moment. “Yeah, it was. I guess I’ve just been hiding from that for so long. From the memory of it.” His hand gripped Ezra’s shoulder and this time, the peace it gave him was even greater than before. “When I thought I’d lost you, I realized I’d never truly opened myself to the Force again. And it cost me you.”

“But you were amazing avenging my death.” He could joke now.

It seemed Kanan couldn’t. “Not vengeance. Justice. Balance. Once I truly opened myself to it, the Force found a way.”

Balance. “I like the sound of that.” 

“I like the sound of my bunk,” Kanan led heavily. 

“Yeah, not a bad idea.” Ezra smiled wider, then hissed at the pain that flared through his cheek.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Kanan asked. There was a lightness in the question that hinted at a story.

“How would you know?” he asked, as they walked slowly back toward their quarters. Ezra wasn’t sure he’d ever been this tired. Or this happy.

“Let’s just say not every sparring session ended well, back at the temple.”

Ezra had a sudden thought. “It was Ahsoka, wasn’t it?” 

“And what makes you think I knew Ahsoka when we were kids?”

“Of course you knew Ahsoka.” Ezra didn’t need the Force to figure that out. Which brought up a point. “You know that means you _did_ know who Fulcrum was, right?”

They stood in front of Ezra’s quarters now.

“At least I didn’t know I knew,” Kanan said after a moment. “That was pretty much the only information the Inquisitor wanted, there at the end.”

“Well, we know he’s not going to use it.”

“Kanan!” Hera called… from Kanan’s quarters.

Ezra smiled widely, not even minding the pain of his burns this time. “Think I’m going to go to sleep now,” he said quickly.

Kanan chuckled as Ezra opened his door. Zeb’s snoring erupted from their quarters.

“Ugh,” Ezra grumbled. “It’s a good thing for him I’m too tired for that noise to keep me awake.”

The Force was a living thing between them, Kanan’s affection floating in it like it never had before.

“Have good dreams,” Kanan wished him, turning and heading for his own berth, where Hera stood waiting for him.

Mom and Dad. Not the ones he’d been born with, but the new ones.

“You, too.”

He could live with that. 

***********

tbc...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea that Kanan and Ahsoka knew each other slightly as youngsters is from Dave Filoni himself. Don't blame me.


	13. A Dream You Tell Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place in the early days after the rescue.

Kanan let the door to his quarters close behind them and took a careful breath. His chest hurt, his joints hurt. _Everything hurt_. 

“Are you going to sleep standing up?” Hera asked him, that ease in her tone that said that, for now, everything was all right.

“Don’t tempt me.” But he wanted to lie down in a bed. He’d been on his feet for literally days. Strapped to a torture table, yes, but it wasn’t like they designed them to hold your weight on their own. Trying not to collapse—that was part of the torture.

“Let’s get you out of your clothes.” Hera was in full mother mode, which he normally found amusing.

Today he just let her help him; out of the arm guard, the boots, the pants.... He couldn’t do anything else. It hurt too much. Adrenaline and determination and the Force itself had gotten him this far, but he had absolutely nothing left. As Hera pulled his sweater over his head, he gritted his teeth against the pain.

“Can this be fun the next time we do it?” he joked. Which reminded him of how long it had been since they’d done this the fun way. As his shirt came off as well, he was left in his shorts in the overly warm room.

“Oh, Kanan…”

He looked down at himself to see what the problem was. 

That was a _lot_ of bruises. He couldn’t even figure how he’d gotten that many. The heavy black marks on his stomach? He remembered those vividly—the Inquisitor had a mean kick. But his arms were bruised, too, and his legs. His right knee was bruised _and_ swollen, and he knew where that came from, though it seemed an extreme reaction for such a small movement.

He’d dropped hard into a crouch when the Inquisitor threw himself back into the reactors. Not just in shock but… because it was over. The energy that had sustained him through the fight was draining away. He remembered thinking that he needed to move. He needed to take Ezra home. 

He didn’t even know how to lay his padawan to rest. Funny how he’d spent nearly three standard years on Lothal, off and on, and he had no idea how they treated their dead.

And then Ezra had just been there. Whole.

“Kanan?” Hera’s voice broke into his memory, bringing him back to the here and now. 

“Ow,” he replied. Simple, off the cuff, and totally true. But also something that would erase the worry he could hear building in her words.

“We’ll drop out of hyperspace in ten hours,” she told him, leading him to his bed and settling him in. She handed him a painkiller and he took it without comment. “I’m sure the staff on the medical frigate will be happy to see you.”

And Ezra. You didn’t take a drop like the without some kind of damage. Kid was moving just fine though. Probably needed sleep.

Kanan closed his eyes. They’d deal with it all tomorrow. “Wonderful,” he said, hearing her shift around the room. Picking up his clothes and dropping them in the sanitizer—and could it even clean them at this point? “All I want is ten hours of dreamless sleep, then.” He’d had enough memories to last him for a while.

Hera’s weight dropped lightly onto the bunk, and her hand ran down the side of his cheek, callused fingers still soft. He opened his eyes to find her sitting there in her binder and panties, looking down at him. She’d dropped the lights, but he could still see her.

He really did love her.

“Maybe that’s not all I want,” he hedged, taking her hand in his—and even his hands felt swollen!—and drawing her down to lay beside him. They snuggled in for a long minute and he realized, as he fought drifting off, that he had something he needed to say.

“Thank you,” he whispered. He didn’t regret what he’d done, but… “I wasn’t exactly ready to leave.”

Hera kissed him gently. “We weren’t exactly ready to let you go.”

Which was a better way than most to fall into sleep.

*********

Ezra had barely made it to his bunk, the pain in his shoulder and hip making it hard to climb the ladder. Once there, though, he didn’t even shift position for nearly two hours. But even then, though the nightmares came—airless space, flames, and battles—they were vague enough that his body and mind slept through them. 

He tossed and turned and did not wake.

***********

Caleb woke to the sensation of burning, of suffocation. His chest and stomach were on fire, limbs heavy with pain. Confused and adrift, he fought to catch his breath, panting with the effort.

Where were they?

“Caleb,” Master Billaba. Kardoa. “You must listen.”

He tried, desperate to hear the approach of the medical evac unit. It hurt. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt….

“Help will arrive soon, but you must calm yourself. Slow your breathing.” 

Kanan tried. He did. Breathe in. Out… Breathe in. Out… Breathe in. He didn’t hurt any less, but at least he wasn’t hyperventilating anymore.

“Good. Now your heart. Slow your heart.”

Dilate. Receive. Contract. Exchange… His heartbeat should have slowed, but he could still hear the blood rushing through him.

“It hurts,” he whispered, the sounds of the _Ghost_ at night intruding on him. 

“Rise above, Caleb,” Billaba asked of him, her voice colored by the sounds of spent battle. “Find the pain and surmount it.”

He tried. He did. But his heart skipped. It lurched. He couldn’t control it and couldn’t find the energy to be frightened by that.

“Feel yourself rise above.”

But he couldn’t.

He was just never very good at that.

***************

_“You just take care of Zeb and Sabine,” Kanan called, sounding fit and safe. “Trust me.”_

_Of course she did._

_The dogfights seemed to go on and on. Chopper had gone missing completely._

_“Kanan, where are you?” she called, intent on her flying. “We could really use some backup.”_

_The silence was deafening. “Kanan?”_

_“Yeah,” Kanan’s voice was quiet. Apologetic. “We can’t get to the hangar bay. I’m not sure—”_

_The_ Sovereign _exploded._

“NO!”

Hera sat up in shock, taking a long minute to figure out she’d been lying next to Kanan, safe in his quarters on the _Ghost_. He was little more than an outline in the dark, but she watched him breathe for a minute, the rise and fall of his chest slow and shallow. 

Even in this dim light, the bruises were everywhere, it seemed. The ones on his chest and stomach were impressive—almost bootprints, which she didn’t want to think about. 

“Kanan,” she whispered. She didn’t want to wake him, but she didn’t want to be alone, either. 

He didn’t even stir. She guessed she shouldn’t be surprised. And she shouldn’t be hurt. He had been through more than she could imagine. It was just plain selfishness to expect him to comfort _her_ now.

So, gathering calm around herself, Hera lay back down next to him. Not on him, as she often did when they shared a bed, but next to. He was too hurt for her weight. Too hurt for anything. She put her hand on his chest—just to feel the steady beat of his heart. To let herself know he was home. Safe.

What she felt under her hand froze her gut. No steady heartbeat, this. No reassurance. Instead his chest thudded wildly, fast then slow. She held her breath as that heartbeat seemed to crash to a halt for a moment before charging on at double time.

“Kanan?” she called out, louder than before. She sat up, tapping his cheek. “Kanan, wake up!”

But he didn’t. He wouldn’t.

Hera reached out and slammed a hand down on the comm panel, thumbed on the lights for good measure. “Chopper, how far to the hyperspace stop?” 

Two hours. They’d been sleeping for longer than she’d thought. 

She put her hand back on Kanan’s chest and really looked at him, at the _wrongness_ of nearly everything. Stars! He hadn’t looked this bad last night. The bruises seemed to have darkened, the swelling increased. She didn’t know if he had two hours. She didn’t even know how long he’d been like this.

A quick sharp knock on the door. “Hera?” Sabine called. “Is everything okay?”

No. No, everything was not okay. Everything _should_ be okay—Kanan was safe at home with them again, and it _should_ be okay, damn it!

“We need to get Kanan to the medical frigate,” she called through the metal. “Now!”

“Hera?” 

Kanan’s voice was almost silent, but she was so completely focused on him that it was easy to hear. 

“I’m here, Kanan.”

“Not… sure... I’m going to be able to get up this morning,” he joked. He took a breath and seemed to stall halfway through it. “Maybe medical frigate’s a good idea.”

The door opened, and Hera heard people behind them, but she couldn’t care. “We’ll get there soon, love,” she replied. “I promise.”

Chopper came over the all-ship comm. They were dropping out of hyperspace now. What good that would do, Hera didn’t know.

“Docking with the _Nyaga An_ now.” Ahsoka announced moments later, worry heard even over the line. “They’ll have medical meet us at the airlock.” 

The _Ghost_ jolted around them with docking.

“Hear that, love,” Hera murmured, running her hand over Kanan’s cheek as he tried to breathe. He was clearly in pain and just as clearly trying to fight it. It was a look she’d seen too many times before.

“Jinxed it,” he gasped. 

“What?”

“Ahsoka,” he said, locking eyes with Hera. “Said I wouldn’t need the bacta tank.” 

“Medical incoming,” a droid’s voice called in the hallway. “Medical incoming. Please make way.”

“Just wanted some sleep,” Kanan griped weakly, his eyes falling closed. “Nothing’s ever simple, is it?”

“Miss?” A hand dropped onto Hera’s shoulder, and she looked up to see a Rodian male in a medical uniform. “Please move. We need to get him over to the medbay.”

So she moved. Pushed against the wall, her view of Kanan blocked by the tech and his medical droid, Hera looked around for the first time. Chopper stood in front of Zeb and Sabine, who hovered outside the door, Ahsoka barely seen behind them. All four looked scared—even Chop—but that was nothing to the look on the face of the boy who’d shoved himself into the corner of the room. 

“Ezra?” she whispered.

His eyes jumped from where they’d been staring through the medtech, straight at Kanan, and he broke her heart with the terror she saw there. She opened her arm to the side and he skirted around the stretcher that the droid was deploying.The solid weight of him against her as she gathered him in was the only comfort she had.

“Let’s get him to the medbay,” the Rodian said quietly. 

And Kanan was gone.

And suddenly, Ahsoka was standing in front of her, and Ezra and Sabine and Zeb were nowhere to be seen. She hadn’t felt Ezra pull away from her. She couldn’t figure out what had happened.

“He was supposed to be fine.” That was all she could say. 

Ahsoka simply nodded. “Why don’t you get dressed? We’ll go over and see him.”

She didn’t say he’d be all right, of course. That was something you’d say to a child—something you’d say to Ezra.

“Ezra?” Hera asked, her mind clearing finally. What was, was, as her mother would say. She had to manage it.

“The rest of his family is taking care of him.”

Hera nodded, straightened her shoulders, held it together, damn it, and did what needed to be done.

************

 **Medical Frigate _Nyaga An_** **  
****Just off the Mid-Ring space lanes**

“Why was the patient not transferred to this facility immediately upon extraction?” the medical droid demanded. The Rodian doctor was examining Kanan while the med droid’s minions were preparing him for the bacta tank. He’d lapsed back into unconsciousness at some point since last Hera had seen him.

“Imperial interrogation is not something to be taken lightly,” the droid continued. “You organics don’t seem to understand your underlying frailty. Forever trying to fight on and ignore your injuries when you should be seeking help.”

Hera closed her eyes. She wouldn’t yell at this droid. She wouldn’t.

But it was on a roll. “Why, one time—”

“Is he going to be okay?” she asked, derailing whatever reminiscence it was planning to impart.

It changed subjects midstream. “Damage has been done to the patient’s heart and several other organs. Numerous muscle tears throughout the body and extremities, and attendant damage to the blood vessels within them.” It was devastatingly matter-of-fact. The droid had obviously lost its bedside manner subroutine. “Of course, his brain remains uninjured. By design, Imperial interrogation tables conduct current through a victim’s main organic cavity, leaving the brain—”

“Look, just tell us if he’s going to be okay, you stupid droid!?” Zeb lost patience far more quickly than Hera.

The droid looked up at him and though it had no facial elasticity, Hera could swear it frowned. “The most probable outcome is a full recovery,” it allowed. “But the patient would not be in such dire condition—”

“We got it,” Ezra put in, very quietly. All he’d been was quiet. “He should have been here yesterday.”

Hera didn’t know if Ezra was trying to smooth things over or not, but that was the result. 

“The patient should be recovered within several days. Healing times are approximate to each species, and depend upon many factors—”

“I’ll take over, 2-1,” the Rodian called to the officious droid, catching Hera’s eye and twitching his mouth appendage in apology. 

“Of course, sir,” the droid said, sounding suddenly deferential. “I will continue supervising the patient’s transition.”

Hera approached the doctor at Kanan’s bedside, surprised when the others hung back. Then again, maybe she shouldn’t be.

In the bright lights of the medical bay, it looked for all the worlds like they’d found Kanan only to lose him again. His skin was a sickly mottled color—something about oxygen and compartments—and his arms and legs had swelled at the joints, his fingers thick and dark. They had a mask on him and were connecting the sensors needed to submerge him in the bacta tank.

The doctor introduced himself finally as Heeto. “It looks very bad, I agree,” he told her, the living compassion in his words soothing her a little. He spoke excellent Basic, her mind observed inanely, a rarity among his kind, given how hard it was to form Basic words with their anatomy. “A few days in the bacta tank and some rest will set him right.” His mouth appendage drew down in a moue of anger. “Interrogations such as these are barbaric.”

“They are,” she whispered. Guilt blossomed at how long she’d let Kanan suffer that barbarity, but this was no time for it. She had a crew to hold together, and she would. Until he could be back with them. 

“We’ll be here waiting, Love,” she promised him, squeezing one swollen hand before the droids hoisted him up and into the tank. 

“We’ll keep a close eye on him, Captain,” Heeto assured her. “But there is always room for those who want to keep watch with us.” He gestured to a row of chairs against the wall. 

Hera surveyed her people. Chopper stood guard at the door, whirring in concern every once in a while. He seemed to be listening to the smaller med droids as they worked, and obviously didn’t like what they were saying. Ezra was standing stiffly in the middle of the room, looking up at Kanan. More haunted than he’d been a week ago, if that were possible. Sabine was watching him—she’d spent a lot of time doing that in the last week—and Zeb was watching Hera herself.

“I’m fine,” she murmured. As if he’d believe it. She looked over at the chairs, assuming they were predictably uncomfortable. But there was no way she was leaving the room right now. “Might as well make ourselves at home.”

Sabine and Zeb nodded and headed toward her, but Sabine turned back when their youngest member made no move to follow. “Come on, Ezra,” she called softly. “We’ll wait together.”

Ezra blinked and nodded, but his leg nearly gave out under him as he turned to follow her. What was wrong now?

Heeto caught his arm. “Where are _you_ injured?” he asked in surprise. Ezra’s hair was a mess from sleep and the run over here, so the saber wounds were mostly hidden. Hera had thought that was all that had happened to him.

“I… I fell,” Ezra admitted, seeming more animated than he had been the whole time.

Heeto just stared at him, waiting for more. 

And there was the chagrined look Hera had come to know and love. Regardless of how disturbing his admission was. “Off the central core catwalks.” 

“Karabast!” Zeb whispered.

Heeto looked from Ezra to the rest of them and back again. “Will you come with me?” he asked the boy. 

Ezra looked like he wanted to argue, and Hera readied herself to interfere.

“The next room,” the Rodian doctor promised. “We’ll be back quicker if we go now.”

Hera was more surprised than anyone when Ezra simply nodded and limped off toward the door.

“How far did you fall?” Heeto asked quietly, turning away to fiddle with the storage containers behind him. “I’m afraid you’ll have to shed your clothes.”

Ezra blushed, glad Sabine wasn’t around. 

“Not sure.” He’d had just enough in him to collapse onto his bunk when they’d all gone to bed last night, too tired and too sore to do anything else. Now, peeling off the sweaty, dirty clothes was painful. “Maybe fifteen meters.”

Heeto made a noise that would have been a whistle from a human’s mouth. “You look like it,” he agreed.

Ezra didn’t want to look down, but he did. His right shoulder and hip were black with bruising, his arm and the rest of that side, simply purple. Explained all the pain. The knee on that side was swollen, though it didn’t hurt more than anything else. Certainly not as much as his hip. 

Heeto helped him up onto the examination table and then ordered the apparatus to check for broken bones.

“Amazing!” Heeto sounded like he would be smiling if Rodians could do that. Ezra guessed that meant no bone healers. “You lead a charmed life.”

Ezra snorted. “Not sure I’d say that.” He thought of Kanan in the next room.

“You know your friend will be all right?” the doctor asked.

“Yeah.” And he did. Didn’t make all of this any less unfair. The rescue was over. They were supposed to be fine.

The doctor came at him with a healing field generator, running it over Ezra’s hip first. “How did you burn your face?”

“Lightsaber.” 

“A lightsaber?” Heeto repeated in surprise. “I haven’t seen a lightsaber wound in years.”

Warmth spread across Ezra’s hip. It did feel better.

“I’m afraid that’ll scar permanently.” Heeto shook his head. “Lightsaber wounds never heal all the way.”

Ezra wondered where Kanan’s scar was (scars, maybe?). Or maybe he’d lied again when he told him he knew how painful they were.

“How is that?” Heeto asked, pulling the generator away from him.

Ezra moved his hip a little. “Better,” he said. “A lot, actually.” He hadn’t really noticed before how much it hurt. Everything else hurt just as much, and now the relief in one area seemed to make the others flare.

The generator went to work on his shoulder next, and Ezra closed his eyes and tried to just let everything go. The panic, the fear, the confusion.... 

“You’ll be sore for a while, but it will all heal.”

 _It’ll heal_. 

He hoped so. That wasn’t always true.

***********

Caleb hadn’t known, until Tai told him, that most people didn’t dream when they were in the tank.

He’d met up with his friends on his second day out of the bacta, and had mentioned the dreams he’d had. Huge spiders and exploding suns.

“That’s weird!” Tai said boldly. “You aren’t supposed to dream in the tanks.”

Now that he’d been out in the world, Caleb was beginning to realize that Tai was going to give her master, a Knight named Nguag, a very hard time. She was rigid, and Billaba had taught him that rigid didn’t work so well in real-life situations.

“I didn’t know you were supposed to do anything in the tanks,” Sammo replied. “Except sleep.”

Caleb nodded. “So if you sleep, why wouldn’t you dream?”

“Bacta doesn’t work that way,” Tai proclaimed as if that answered everything.

“So what was it like?” Sammo asked, changing the topic before his two human friends started a fight. Again. “Being out there and fighting?”

Caleb grinned, eager to tell them all about it. “It’s amazing.”

***********

Sabine looked up as Ezra and the doctor walked back into the room. Ezra was wearing an ill-fitting uniform, which was worth a double take. He was moving better and his face had finally been taken care of, the sheen of bacta cream on it highlighting the wounds instead of hiding them.

“You’ll be fine,” Heeto assured him. 

“Yeah,” Ezra agreed, looking up at Kanan. “Sure.” He didn’t seem very assured.

“The bacta tank will be monitored at all times,” Heeto told them, looking to Hera as the head of the group. “If you do choose to rest like sane beings, there are quarters available nearby. Just ask one of us.”

He left them alone and Ezra walked over to slump into the empty chair next to Hera.

“Least this time we don’t have to worry about stormtroopers tearing the place apart,” Zeb offered into the silence. 

Kaller. Yeah, that’d been fun.

“We don’t?” Sabine asked. She’d thought Hera would take Ezra to task for not letting them know he’d been hurt, but Hera just looked too exhausted for that. “We are kind of sitting ducks out here in the space lanes.”

“Only for another few minutes,” Ahsoka announced, walking in and looking up at Kanan’s tank. She smiled a little smile and got back to what she was saying. “Hera, I can fly the _Ghost_ to the next rendezvous for you. I already sent the transport along with one of the _Nyaga An_ ’s crew.”

“Thanks,” Hera said. She looked like she was barely awake. “We’ve done this before. I know there’s no reason to sit and stare, but…”

Ahsoka nodded. “But one does tend to sit and stare anyway,” she agreed. She’d done this before, too, Sabine guessed. “The last time I saw him in a tank, he woke three days early. The medical droid was very put out.”

Sabine really wanted to know about Ahsoka and Kanan. Their acquaintance seemed to be a revelation to everyone, even Hera. Ahsoka didn’t seem like a Jedi. But she didn’t seem _not_ like a Jedi, either.

Zeb snorted. “Last time I saw him in one, he busted out of the thing and took on an entire team of bucketheads.”

Ahsoka’s eyes widened. “I look forward to hearing about that.” She dipped her head to Hera. “We’ll be making the jump soon.”

And then it was just the five of them again. Well, and Kanan.

Hera looked up at the tank, its blue light washing out her natural color. “He said he wanted some dreamless sleep,” she murmured wryly. “Guess he’s going to get it.”

Sabine wished he could rest in his bunk where he belonged, but there was no point in saying that.

“So we stay with the fleet for a while, right?” she asked instead, merely for something to say..

Ezra hadn’t heard that. When did that get decided? “Why can’t we go back to Lothal?” 

Hera shook her head. “I’m sorry, Ezra,” she said quietly. “We discussed it last night. The Empire has stepped up its presence there. It’s too dangerous to go back right now. The odds of us getting captured…”

Yeah, Ezra didn’t think they needed to go through all of this again any time soon.

“How long?” he asked. It was funny how much he missed home. There’d been days when he was a kid when he’d dreamed of hopping on a freighter and never setting foot on the planet again. Now he just wanted to see the city spires.

“I don’t know,” Hera admitted.

“Well at least we can keep giving the Empire a black eye, right?” Zeb offered with a raw smile. “I expect Kallus’ll wait for us to return so I can bust his head later.”

Ezra nodded, thinking as he studied Kanan’s floating body. There really was nothing to do but wait. He’d hated it on Kaller, he hated it now.

“I hate those things,” Hera whispered, like she’d read his mind. She was glaring at the tank. 

Ezra got the idea she more hated seeing Kanan in the tank. As a healing medium, it was weird, but it was definitely better than the alternative.

“Remember that tank on Ubdair?” Zeb asked.

Hera actually smiled. “I thought it would break just getting him into it,” she replied. “Thank God he only had to be in there a day.”

“Where’s Ubdair?” Sabine asked. Wow. So, even before her time.

“It’s a planet in the Yalla sector,” Hera said. “Agrarian. The Ubdari use a native root to create high grade protein products. The Empire put up an orbital refinery and started stripping the planet.”

“We stripped ‘em back,” Zeb pitched in with a satisfied grin. “With malice.”

Ezra grinned at that. “So, why’d he go in that time?”

Hera smirked, remembering the words Kanan had said to her this morning. “Because nothing is ever simple.”

*********

“What happened to setting the charges and getting out?” Hera asked over the comms. She was holding the _Ghost_ on the dark side of the planet, waiting for extraction. 

Laser blasts were heard clearly over the line. “Ask the stormtroopers,” Kanan snapped back. His voice said he was busy. And annoyed with himself for getting caught.

“Make your way to Docking Bay 445,” Zeb growled. “Fararla and his people are holed up there.” 

“And where are you?” Kanan asked pointedly, reading the same hesitance in Zeb’s voice that Hera had. 

The Lasat was silent a long moment. 

“Zeb…?”

“There’s a dozen bucketheads between me and any exit,” he admitted. “Just get Fararla and his people and mop this up. You can come pick me up later.”

That wasn’t happening.

“My escort is taken care of,” Kanan said after another moment of silence. Hera wondered what he’d done to them, because it had seemed like an awfully hairy situation before Zeb’s life was at stake. “Heading for the control center.”

“Bay 445, you idiot,” Zeb roared. There was an explosion in the background. “Get to the Ubdari and get them—” His comm went dead.

“ZEB!” Hera groaned and broke cover, heading for the station and calling up the schematics Zeb had transmitted an hour ago. An hour. That was all it took for the whole thing to go to hell. “Kanan, I’m headed for the control center. I’m really hoping you both still have those envi-suits on.”

“Not so much,” Kanan said briefly. “It’s not going to matter, though.” A sound Hera had only heard when Kanan practiced his Jedi forms came over the line. His lightsaber? “I’ll get him out.”

Hera nodded to herself. _All right, then_. “Heading to the docking bay. I’ll start loading the Ubdari. _Get Zeb there_.”

********

“Turned out I got him there—over my shoulder,” Zeb said, taking up the story. “Kriffing bucketheads had blown the control center half to hell and were _still_ coming.” He smiled in memory. It had been a good fight. “Never knew that lightsaber of his would come in so handy until he came in with the thing blazing. Tore into half of ‘em. I took the other.”

“So why the tank?” Ezra wanted to know. At least he was showing a little more life now. Poor kid had been terrified this morning. They all had.

“Because humans aren’t made to take laser blasts,” Hera said quietly.

Sabine and Ezra looked expectant. 

“We were halfway to the docking bay when a couple of stormtroopers surprised us coming out of a side hall.” He snorted, the telling of this easier than the living of it had been. “Surprised themselves, too.” 

He looked up to where Kanan floated, using the image of his friend healing and in the present to anchor him. “Got us sandwiched in with the rest of 'em behind us. He got hit twice before we could cut them down.” And in falling, Kanan had still lit up the saber at the last minute, deflecting a blast that would have taken off Zeb’s head.

“Zeb carried him out and we got to the surface,” Hera continued. Zeb had been sure he was carrying a corpse by the time he jumped into the _Ghost_. “The Ubdari were a very simple people, but the planet had a Republic settlement that had been abandoned in the war.”

“Damn place was falling apart,” Zeb remembered. “Good thing bacta fluid lasts for a century.”

They all fell silent again, because there was nothing to say. Ever. Times like this you just waited and tried not to crawl out of your skin.

The door opened, admitting a very tall human female with orange hair. She was wearing the same kind of uniform the doc had put Ezra in. Looked like a regular army. “Captain Qathha thought you might like to rest?” she said timidly. “Eat?”

Hera clearly planned to sit in that seat until Kanan himself told her to move. Ezra, too. Zeb nodded to Sabine and they made a silent plan.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Sabine said, rising and looking expectantly at Ezra. First things first. Hera was a soldier as much as he and Sabine were, really. She’d hold on a bit longer. “Ezra, you’re coming with me.” Kid was about to argue, but Sabine pulled it out. “Hera’s got to be starving by now.”

Zeb hid a smile. That did it. The kid stood stiffly and nodded. “Fine. Guess we could all use something.” Didn’t sound too convincing, but if it got him out of sitting here staring at bacta liquid, Zeb was all for it. 

“Thanks,” Hera said quietly, once Sabine had herded Ezra out. 

Zeb pretended confusion. “I’m just sitting here. I didn’t do anything.”

Hera smiled. Which was good to see.

“This isn’t going to bring Kanan down,” he told her. “You know that.”

She didn’t. She just stared up at the tank and kept her silence.

***********

Mygeeto was a mess. 

Even Caleb’s love of the fight wasn’t enough to get him through _every_ day, and today had been worse than most. Big-Mouth’s squad had lost nine men, and Caleb had heard that one of the Republic battalions that had been stationed here before they arrived had been ambushed to the north, their ranks decimated.

He knew it was strange and somehow wrong to feel so at home in war, but Caleb did. Usually. Today his young body ached and he wished for the metal and glass of home, where everything ran on a schedule and everything worked.

He stood on the observation deck at the top of a very high tower, just outside of one of the larger cities on the southern continent. Smoke rose from a number of buildings, which only served to highlight the fact that even more buildings were too destroyed to burn.

“You’re exposed up here, kid,” Styles called from the door of the tower lift.

“I just needed to see the bigger picture,” he said quietly. He was too tired today to fight the clone’s repeated use of the word kid. 

“Bigger picture might get you killed,” Styles told him, coming out onto the deck and standing with him. “Best to keep your eyes on the field in front of you.”

Caleb turned to him. “Is that what you do?” he asked. Clones were interesting. They lived in the moment in a different way than Jedi did. They were bred for their role: fighter, leader, protector. Not just trained, but literally bred.

“Me?” Styles snorted, looking out at the plains beyond the city. “I keep my eyes on the job. Clean away the muck of the separatists. Protect the innocent ones who got caught in all this.” He grinned and bumped Caleb lightly in the shoulder. “Keep you out of the bacta tank.”

Caleb did grin at that, but it was a tired one.

“Let’s get downstairs before your master starts wondering where you got to,” Styles suggested.

It was Caleb’s turn to snort. “But wasn’t she the one who sent you up here in the first place?”

Styles’s chuckle followed him back to the lift.

*********

Hera gazed out the viewport of the _Ghost_ and waited for the diagnostics to finish running. Her ship had been hit when Ahsoka swept in to save them above Mustafar, and the damage had now been repaired. She’d been reviewing the reports for something to do.

Kanan was “still soaking” as Sabine liked to call it, but Heeto assured them he was doing well. Hera had realized after the medical frigate caught up to the rest of the fleet that she’d have to work her crew back into something normal before they all went crazy. Kanan wouldn’t be thrilled if they just spent their lives in the medbay waiting for him.

The rebel fleet—at least this part of it—was hidden in a remote sector, far away from Lothal or Mustafar, or anywhere they might be looked for. It was surprisingly large. She somehow hadn’t expected that.

Locked away from the rest of the rebellion, safe in her cell, Hera had thought hers was one of dozens, hopefully hundreds, of tiny teams. Sticking it to the Empire. She _dreamed_ of a time when they’d rise up together, of course, but she hadn’t hoped they were already preparing to do it. Numerous supercells fed by tiny cells fed by people just like her.

Phoenix Cell. That was the name of this one. The human version of a legend shared by hundreds of species. Life from the ashes of death.

“Captain Syndulla?”

Hera startled as the utter silence of an empty ship was broken by the call over her comms. She’d sent Zeb and Sabine off to forage for supplies on the main supply trawler. Ezra was taking his turn with Kanan.

“This is Syndulla,” she responded. 

“Commander Sato would like to speak with you aboard the _Phoenix Home_.” It sounded formal. Military. Organized. Like the whole fleet.

Hera looked out at the ships around her, thinking about what Sato might ask. And what she might agree to. Not that she could make any decisions without Kanan but… They’d been fighting on their own for so long. And at such risk…

It couldn’t hurt to have some help, could it?

*********

No planet they visited was ever whole, Caleb noticed. At fifteen, traveling the galaxy and exploring new worlds should have been an adventure, but for him, it just led to more of the questioning that had gotten him dirty looks at the temple and laughs from his frien—from the clones in the field.

Fumsika, he was told, had once been a lush and beautiful world, mostly rainforests and swamps that fed a large, peaceful society. As he wandered the main spaceport now, waiting for Kasmir to finish his negotiations for the contraband they were supposed to be running, all Caleb saw was scorched earth and ruins. The population had been reduced to three or four small cities, all run by the newly minted “Empire.”

He remembered Mygeeto. The way the cities had given way to rubble under the force of their battles. Even then, he’d reveled in the fight. In the hopes of making a difference. Destroying the separatists once and for all. At the time, the means had justified the ends. Right?

Except that every planet looked like this now. Maybe they weren’t all burnt out physically, but psychically. Like the war had just… ruined everything. Was this what he’d fought for? What his master had _died_ for?

“Hey kid!” 

Caleb whirled. Styles—

No. Kasmir. His heart slowed to normal. Just Kasmir.

“Let’s go!” Kasmir said. “I have money to make!”

Caleb looked at the devastation around them and nodded. Money to make. _Somebody_ had to get something out of this aftermath of disaster, right?

**********

Ezra knelt on the floor of the medbay, eyes closed, mind open. He could feel Kanan, but… not. Maybe it was the bacta tank.

 _Kanan?_ He called, just like he had in the space over Mustafar. _Kanan?_

 _This is stupid, Ezra,_ he told himself. _He’s asleep. He’s not going to hear you._

_And you’re not going to hear him._

The door swished open and the world shifted around him. Ahsoka.

He could feel her too. A little. Not like Kanan, but…

She settled next to him—on the floor like that was the most normal thing to do. Maybe she’d know the answer to the question that kept rolling around in his head.

“You’re a Jedi,” he started quietly. 

“No,” she broke in gently. There was an old, soft regret in the word. “But I knew him when I was.”

Ezra opened his eyes and looked up at the tank. Kanan’s color has returned to normal over the course of the day. That was better. Better than two days ago when…

“He’s my master.” Funny how, more and more, that didn’t sound weird. “Why didn’t I know that he was…”

“Dying?” she finished for him. “The Force doesn’t make you telepathic, Ezra.”

“But I can sense him—sense you.” Why hadn’t he sensed _this_ before it was almost too late?

“Because our beings create disturbances in the Force.” She smiled. “I expect you sensed him when you first neared him, though you may not have understood what you were feeling.”

Which was true. “But when we rescued him, He could hear me—we could speak to each other.”

Ahsoka looked shocked for a minute. Maybe even a little fearful? It was hard to read her face. “Mustafar is a nexus for incredible power,” she finally said, as if convincing herself of something. “It’s possible it enhanced your bond temporarily.”

“So it _won’t_ be like that from now on,” he said sadly.

She smiled. “It often takes years to build a strong bond, Ezra,” she comforted him. “That yours is clearly so strong already is something you should treasure.”

 _Yeah._ “I’d treasure it more if it wasn’t so one-sided right now,” he grumbled.

***********

Kanan Jarrus. 

A new name, a new life.

Moraga was beautiful. A jungle planet that the Empire hadn’t even got to yet. Maybe they’d never get here. Which suited him just fine. He was done with the war. Done with what the Republic had become. 

Caleb Dume had followed blindly. Kanan Jarrus never would.

***********

An alarm started blaring on the control panel, and Ezra was on his feet in an instant. 2-1 entered the room at a robotic run and stared down at the status screen.

“No, no, no,” the droid said angrily. 

Ezra tried to breathe normally. “What?”

“This patient is supposed to remain in the bacta tank for regeneration for no less than four standard days!”

Ahsoka smiled, but Ezra didn’t get the joke. Until she pointed to Kanan.

Who had opened his eyes.

“Told you they get cranky when he wakes up early.”

************

It was still two more days before Kanan was released back to the _Ghost_. None of them were happy about the delay, least of all him, but he tried to take it in stride.

They even, at one point, left him on his own—for about ten minutes. Zeb left to find some food for a welcome home meal and Sabine wasn’t back yet and Kanan took a deep breath for the first time far too long without someone watching his every move.

Felt pretty good. 

But the freedom ended abruptly when Ahsoka walked in.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better, Kanan.” She hadn’t put an emphasis on his name, but he heard it all the same and smiled in response.

“I hope you haven’t told them any of my more embarrassing stories from the Temple.” It was a joke, but it very much wasn’t. Caleb Dume might be both the past and the present as far as Yoda was concerned, but Kanan still wasn’t sure he saw it that way.

“I’ve told them nothing,” she assured him, taking a seat beside his bed. “And I will tell them nothing.”

“Thank you.”

“It is your story to tell,” she replied pointedly.

“Thank you,” he repeated, more sarcasm in the tone. She seemed to be waiting for something. “I take it this isn’t a social call?”

She bowed her head slightly in acknowledgement. “I spoke with Ezra while you were sleeping,” she began. “You’re aware of the danger of what you both did above Mustafar?”

Kanan was. He hadn’t thought about it since it happened, but… “I’m aware the power necessary for us to communicate the way we did couldn’t have come from either of us.” _Certainly not me._ Kanan had been destroyed more than once in his life, and he knew how weak he’d become in that interrogation cell.

“It’s possible it was simply a ‘fluke’,” she offered. “But you must be aware.”

 _“Felt it, I have. Anger, fear, loss.”_ But no answers. Even Yoda didn’t seem to have a solution.

“I’m aware,” he assured her. “Not sure I can do anything about it, but I’m aware.”

He was pretty sure that the dark energy they must have touched to make that connection was fed by both his own despair and Ezra’s. A one-time thing? A constellation of unfortunate stars?

At least he hoped.

“You are stronger than you think, Kanan Jarrus,” she told him. 

_We’ll see…_

***********

Walking through the corridors of the _Nyaga An_ was… uncomfortable.

Not because he was still in pain—the aches were fading to nothing as he moved and Heeto had promised he was fully recovered. No…. It was all just so familiar.

Uniforms, military-clean, salutes and couriers and clipboards and staff.

Like a war all over again.

He remembered his dreams in the tank, as he always did: images of war—of The War. What he’d done and what he’d seen. Kanan Jarrus had never been to war. Kanan Jarrus didn’t _want_ to go to war.

“Are you okay?” Hera asked softly, her hand slipping into his, giving him a comfort she only vaguely knew he needed.

“I’m fine,” he replied, shaking off his funk. “Just ready to get home.”

Hera smiled contently at that, which got Kanan all the way to the airlock. “Everybody made a fuss, you know?” she warned him.

Kanan just grinned. “I figured.”

“If you get tired—”

“I won’t.”

And he didn’t. The party was small. The crew only, as if they knew he’d had enough of other people for a while. They ate, drank, and relaxed. Finally. Healed and whole and safe and… them. 

“Hey Kanan,” Ezra said, an easy grin on his face that made a matching one on his master’s.” I thought you said you knew how much a lightsaber wound hurt.”

Kanan’s guard went up. “I do.”

“I didn’t see a scar when you were in the bacta tank,” Ezra pressed. “Heeto said they scar permanently.”

“They do,” Hera answered, finishing her ale.

“Hera…” Kanan warned.

She ignored him completely. “It’s on his cheek.”

So of course, everyone stared him in the face for a full fifteen seconds while they looked for the scar and he turned redder.

Hera took an _excruciatingly_ long time to deliver the punchline.

“Not that cheek.”

The laughter was worth the embarrassment. Almost. He’d missed them all. He’d truly believed he’d never see them again, so even being roasted for that unfortunate butt swipe Sammo had given him a lifetime ago was worth it. 

He wanted it to stay just like this. But nothing ever did, did it?

He had discussed “the plan” with Hera while he was still in the medbay. They would stay and provide an extra ship for Phoenix Squadron, just until they decided it was safe to get back to Lothal. He wasn’t sure she really meant to return to what had become a sort of almost-home to them all (and what was the only home Ezra had ever known), and he didn’t like the idea of Phoenix Squadron as even a temporary homebase, but…

Hera deserved this. She deserved, for once, to have someone other than them backing her up. She’d shouldered the responsibility of Fulcrum and the rebellion alone for years. She should see the revolution she was helping to build.

Then, one day, maybe they could go back to the way things used to be. And even if that was a dream he told himself, it could be a good dream.

“How are you doing?” she asked, leaning into him as they watched Zeb trounce Ezra at dejarik.

Kanan tightened his arm around her and spoke the absolute truth.

“Right this minute? I’m almost perfect.”

**********

the end.


End file.
